


Where The Bright Things Are, Part Two: Big Trouble In Little Site 19

by ADifferentKindOfDanger



Series: Where The Bright Things Are [2]
Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Angst, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Depictions of injury, Domestic Fluff, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Family Drama, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Feels, Femslash, Fluff, Gay, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Swearing, Two of them!, clight - Freeform, its just fucking gay, mlm, music references, reality benders, some violence, wlw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 45,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22511098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADifferentKindOfDanger/pseuds/ADifferentKindOfDanger
Summary: Jackie Bright, now a thirty-six year old woman with a fear of wrinkles, reality benders and just about everything in between, navigates life as a senior researcher and tries to make good, adult choices. She loves life, Kate Bush, her girlfriend and her excessively gay dads. The thing is, life doesn't like Jackie. Or perhaps, it's not life. Perhaps, it's something - or someone - else.
Relationships: Jack Bright/Dr. Alto Clef, OC/OC
Series: Where The Bright Things Are [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1338406
Comments: 15
Kudos: 19





	1. Thirty Six Years Young

**Author's Note:**

> aw shit! here we go again! i'd also like to clarify you don't have to have read the first to read this, it's pretty secular imo.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie Bright is nearly thirty six, and she cannot stand her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanna clarify i want to update every two weeks or so. chapters will be about 4000 words and i think i can manage that. please do not hold me to my words i am just a baby.

I think the worst thing about my birthday is that everyone else loves making a fuss over it. Everyone claps, they bring presents, your cheeks hurt from forcing yourself to smile, you have to eat sickly cake, there are noises, confetti, you eat too much, people don't leave your house – they make me want to die, but to be frank, you need to be a vastly more social creature than I am to enjoy them.

Not only does the mortifying ordeal of being known make birthdays a veritable minefield, but I hate getting older in general. It used to be quite fun to be a year older, it meant you could live a little more. But then, you reach thirty, your bones hurt, alcohol hurts your eyes and you get your very first wrinkle. You look at yourself in the mirror and you are a shallow, sallow and sour reflection of the woman you were ten years prior and it shows on your goddamn face.

The worst part is that you never thought you’d get old. I felt untouchable when I was in my twenties, immortal, indestructible; I barely sustained a single scratch. I got shot in the shoulder and I lived to tell the tale. I hardly reckon my body could do that now, at thirty six.

_I am not thirty six yet_. I’m thirty five and three hundred and sixty four days old, hence the aforementioned speculation about birthdays. I am going to be thirty five in seven hours, twenty minutes and thirty seven seconds. _Thirty six. Thirty five._ Thirty four. It’s a time bomb of sorts. I can feel the time slipping away from me.

_Thirty six_ is mid life, and I know it’s mid life, but I strangely feel like I’m living on borrowed time. No, I am not the type to get premonitions. I am just vapid and paranoid.

I look at my pasty face in the mirror now and I stare at the wrinkles around my mouth and just underneath my eyes. The dark circles are purple, like everlasting bruises beneath my eyes. I have tried every method under the sun to rid of them; sleep; creams; pills; diet; none have worked and they are very much a curse in all senses of the word. My eyes, which are a bright blue, make them stick out even more.

Currently, I've got these burst blood vessels all over my face - I threw up yesterday because I couldn't sleep the night before. They are supposed to have gone away by now, but they haven't.

Even though I hate my face, I'm still looking at myself, mostly because I'm thinking about other things. I still think I look pathetic doing it. A single grey hair lingers just in front of my eye, and I pluck it out quicker than it takes to register it's colour. Upon further inspection, it had been red, but it had shone grey in the light. That happens more than I like to admit, actually. Much more.

I look down at the porcelain sink and cough up whatever was on my chest, and I run the sink for a few moments to flush it down. Having it in the sink is an eyesore according to Amelia, but it goes down anyway, so I don’t see why she’s whining. Maybe because she spends so long cleaning it. She came from one of the bigger cities up north, in Washington, so it makes sense that she wants to clean everything in the apartment once a week.

It’s not really an apartment, it’s a small house on my mother’s farm. It’s not that I can’t afford rent, either, it’s just that I’m too scared to live on my own. Even though I’d be with Amelia and Shepherd, I’d feel considerably more unsafe in the city without my parents nearby. It’s about a mile’s walk between here and their house, but it wouldn’t take long for them get here. Amelia always gets uppity whenever we walk over for Sunday dinners, but I like walking the mile, especially in winter when it’s refreshingly cold.

Amelia keeps pestering me to move out to the city, but I don’t think I’m ready. San Diego is stuffy, it smells like petrol and food and it’s hotter than hell. It’s hotter here, but at least it smells like wheat when it smells like anything. I like it here and I’m not leaving. Amelia also wants kids. Amelia wants a lot of things.

Daddy used to say she was a ‘taker;’ but then again, he’s my daddy, and he’s been suspicious of her since the beginning. We’ve been dating for almost seventeen years, and we’ve been steady for about fourteen, and in all that time he’s only really trusted her for the past year or so.

“Babe.” I hear from behind, and I turn around to see Amelia. She’s _gorgeous._ She’s got deep ebony skin and dark eyes that shine like diamonds and... somewhat glittery lips, I think she’s wearing lip balm. She motions to her hair, which she’s let down from its precarious braided and beaded arrangements. “What do you think? Should I go natural again?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” I reply, coughing again. This fine, I swallow the phlegm in my mouth so she doesn’t see.

“I was thinking I could do something funky with it. Beads, cuffs, what do you think?”

“Um, I think you should leave it down. It looks nice, really nice.”

“I guess. It needs a break, at any rate.” She sighs and undoes the sash on her dressing gown, then turns around from me and steps into the shower, sliding away the frosted glass panel so I can’t see her.

“Okay, okay.” I cough again. I don’t know why there’s so much phlegm on my chest. There seems to be quite a lot there in general. “So, how was work?”

The water starts and the water hits the ceramic floor of the floor to ceiling shower. She grumbles something I can’t quite make out before the steam begins to escape through the small slatted vent at the top of the glass door.

“How do you _think_ my shift was, Jackie?”

“I’m taking it that it didn’t go too well, then. What happened?”

“Reports galore.” Her voice and words are succinct and clearly filled to the brim with annoyance. “How was going home?”

“I went to see Jack and Alto for a few hours.” I reply, having turned back to the mirror. “They wanted some help with wedding planning.”

“They’re getting married in two weeks!”

“Alto hadn’t bought a shirt yet. He was just gonna wear his work shirt, Jack wasn’t going to stand for it.” I take my cleanser from the side and pump the acidic liquid on to a small cotton pad. I rub it all over my nose and forehead, and beneath my mouth. “Also, their florist bailed on them because the arrangements they want were too complicated.”

“I thought it was just roses and ribbon?”

“And everything else.” I chuckle, wiping my face off with a linen cloth soaked in water. “Baby’s breath, heathers, ivy... then they got in to the foxgloves and the florist damn near pissed himself. It’s okay, they’ve got a new one now. Emergency appointment.”

“I love your dads, but a Vegas wedding with poisonous flowers does not sound fun.”

“Yeah, but it’s _them_. This is exactly the wedding they’ve dreamed of, and now they can get on with it. Have you seen Jack’s ring? The stone tears through latex gloves!”

“It’s a good ring.” Amelia agrees. “Is their cake fine?”

“Actually, the cake’s not too overboard. It’s got a tiara and various crystals embedded in it, as well as Alto wanting to cut it with a sword... but not too ostentatious.” I press a thin paper patch, soaked in some kind of chemical, on to the fine lines on my face. I have to leave them there for some time.

“Oh god, imagine the jewellery.”

“Jack asked if you’d help him with that, actually. He knows you’ve got a good eye for jewels.” I grasp two small gelatine sheets and place them under my eyes; they feel precarious, even when they’re on right.

“What’s he need help with?” The scent of roses is rising in the steam now, making it feel much thicker and heavier over my shoulders and in my nose.

“I’m imagining someone kind of tiara.”

“But you said the cake has a tiara on it?”

“Yeah, but that’s not _his_ tiara, is it? You know as well as I do that he’s gonna want something big.”

“I mean, I suppose, he can’t just go without a tiara until the cake gets cut.”

“Exactly.” I pull my short hair taut against my scalp and tie it in a tight ponytail. “So you’ll help him?”

She doesn’t reply for a few moments as I inspect the sides of my face and hastily rub ‘magic cream’ on anything that doesn’t look right. There are fine lines just at the sides of my eyes I’ve started noticing, and they annoy me much more than my everlasting dark circles. They’re a sign of age.

“I’ll see what I can do, but we’ve got different tastes.” The shower stops and she slides back the glass door, stepping out gracefully in a cloak of rose steam. “Did you make food, baby?”

She paces towards me, robed in silk again, and embraces me from behind. She rests her head between my shoulder and my neck and I crane it away, desperate for her to not see the tiny lines forming at the sides of my eyes. It crosses my mind, albeit briefly, that I should stop smiling if I don’t want to look like a rotten jack-o-lantern some ten years from now.

“Uh, no. But I can make food now.” I quickly respond, smearing on more of that cream in the hopes it’ll do its job a little faster.

“Don’t get any of your moisturiser in it.”

It seems like everyone around me has aged quite gracefully. My father’s body has recently turned 55 without a hitch; he looks glamorous in a good way, his hair is shining, his face is still quite full and his skin is smooth, not a single dark spot in sight. Either that, or he’s doing a good job of covering it all up. I’m sure it’s not a question I’m supposed to ask. He’s used to being young, he normally dies before this point, but he’s preserved himself fairly well.

On a genetic level, there is no reason I should age as badly as I think I will. Then again, there’s no reason my I couldn’t just crumble in to a million pieces right this second. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt at this job, it’s that the unexpected is the norm. You just don’t see it coming, ever.

I mean, I've seen a lot of shit, but I'm constantly surprised by what I see, I mean, it just keeps coming. When I started, ten years ago, I thought that a decade in I would be hardened, that I'd have seen everything there was to see, and although I am not ever shocked by it, I like to keep count of just how many limbs I've seen come out of a human torso. The record, by the way, is twenty three. Then it gets a bit gross and often, the security guards shield your eyes from it. They're nice that way.

So, yes. I have no doubt it is possible I will shrivel and prune and look like a raisin by the time I'm sixty-five. I would rather look like the human embodiment of a raisin than have twenty three limbs simultaneously erupt from my chest like some kind of hell-gate. Yes, I am also afraid of death. No, I do not want to think about it.

I stare at myself again. The patches still need more time to do whatever they do to my skin; I think it's something stupid I have to leave them on for, like an hour and no more. I didn't set a timer, but what harm could they actually do? They're just patches. Amelia likes to torment me with the thought that my extensive suite of creams and remedies for aging skin are all placebo. Sometimes I want to believe her, sometimes I don't. It depends on how I'm feeling. Recently, I've been very much stuck in to a 'I do not want to get old' kind of pattern, and the fear of that alone keeps me ordering these stupid monthly subscription patch packages. Every month I tell myself I'll stop, that I'll be a little more productive with my money, but then it boils down to the fact that it is _my_ paycheck and as long as I pay my portion of the bills to my mother every month and buy food when Amelia is not around then there is no reason I should not be able to buy the stupid little patches.

My face is starting to freak me out. It's fallen in to an uncanny valley of sorts. It's fairly clear to me, albeit never to other people, that I've been cursed by vanity ever since I noticed the tiny wrinkles forming at the sides of my eyes and the sun damage from the Californian sun on my face. I do not want to recognise my vapid self and I look away from her, and I walk away from the mirror. I set aside the fears of turning thirty six tomorrow and I flick on the stereo, which sits just outside the bathroom and next to the kitchen. It dawns on me I'm wearing nothing but a thin chemise, and I look around for signs of anyone that's not Amelia, but I don't find anyone.

_I've been through the desert on a horse with no name..._ the radio sings at me as I root through the chest freezer to find something I can cook with little to no hassle. _...It felt good to be out of the rain._

"Am, what do you want?" I call through the house, hoping for a response. Everything in the freezer looks disgusting, and I'm not eating anything from it. Amelia doesn't feel the same way. She can get me to eat.

Amelia doesn't reply, but the stereo does. _After two days, in the desert sun, my skin began to turn red._ Its uncanny timing shocks me, though maybe I had synced with it before. _After three days, in the desert fun, I was lookin' at a river bed_. As it continues with the song, I sigh. It's not talking to me any more; fine! It can play that game with me if it wants.

"Am!" I yell, substantially louder, and I must rouse something as she pokes her head through the door. My voice quietens when I know I've got her attention. "What do you want to eat?"

"I'm going out now."

"Where?" I ask. She hadn't told me she was going out. "You said you wanted food."

"Called in. One of my researchers has found some unreported effects, in the worst way possible." I notice now she's been getting dressed, and she's pulling her lab coat over her arms and shoulders. She buttons the first rung of buttons up and slips her heels on to her feet. "I'll bring food home, honey."

"Yeah, but when are you gonna be home?" I lean against the cold chest freezer, hands gripped tight around the door.

"I'll tell you when I know. I just have to assess the situation, I shouldn't be long. Go out yourself if you have to." She unhooks her bag from the coat peg and checks it for the essentials, even though she hasn't taken them out since she got home.

"Don't want anything."

"Well, you're gonna have to eat something." Her bag is firmly over her shoulder, and I know I can't stall her any longer. "Bye, honey."

I wave her off, and as soon as she's gone, I find Jack has magically made his own way into the room, and he's holding a dish of some kind. On closer inspection, I find it's a _casserole_ dish. Sometimes I wonder if the man has wiretapped my house.

He's nothing like me or Amelia, frankly. He's well made and stood upright, not slouching with tense shoulders. His hair sits neatly around the midsts of his neck, curled perfectly without a single hair out of place, and a small black, bejewelled barrette (which, to some kind of dismay of mine, matches his equally as austentatious engagement ring) sits at the back of his hair and keeps two of his perfect, wavy curls off his face so he can see clearly. He's gotten progressively more glamorous since I was a child; he was just overtly flamboyant when I was young, but now he's camp with a modicum of grace and a wallet to compensate it. I still can't stop him from liking ABBA. There are some things we can only aspire to do.

"Evenin', darlin.'" I have noticed his voice hasn't changed very much, thank god. If he started speaking in one of those grating flamboyant voices you hear on TV, I think I would die.

"How did you know I was hungry?" I slam the chest freezer shut."Also, how the fuck did you get in?"

"Well, you complained about it before we got to the florist earlier, remember? You always eat a casserole, baby." He slides the dish over the counter to me and then glides over to the stereo to change it himself. Disco, much to my chagrin. Don't get me wrong, some of it is good, but he likes it indiscriminately and you know what, I think it's fair the shit gets on my nerves.

"You're not answering my question, how the fuck did you get in?"

"Amelia was leaving as I was coming in. I would have knocked." He sits down at my counter. I know now he isn't going to leave for a while, so I grab him a glass and a bottle from the fridge, and then I hand them to him. He thanks me with a nod and pours himself a glass. "The florist has confirmed he can do the flowers we want, he's adding some niceties as sympathy for our previous situation but we do have to pay more for his time."

I nod in response and sit across from him.

"Planning a wedding is so stressful!" He stretches his shoulders. "And I know we could've waited longer, but it's been long enough, y'know?"

"You could have just gotten married in Vegas for a hundred dollars."

"Me and Alto aren't like that, and you know that." He sips, and by some machination he doesn’t get a drop of gloss around the rim of the cup. The sheer talent surprises me.

"I thought it was just you."

"No, he's the one that's so adamant about black roses. He's _so_ goth." Jack rolls his eyes and smiles at me, holding his thin stiletto glass close to the table and at an angle, but he doesn’t spill a drop.

“You’re both goth.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that, my dear. Oh, and Alto found a shirt he likes, it’s silk, we’re going to go have his measurements taken tomorrow. I swear, the powers that be are going to kill me if I have to take any more time off, we’ve got the honeymoon straight after and that’s three weeks in itself.” He huffs and takes a languorous sip of his wine. “We paid that off today, by the way. Managed to wrangle it up to first class!”

“Oh, fuck, you guys have the honeymoon. Who’s replacing Alto while you’re gone?”

“Well, that’s partially why I’ve come here to talk to you. He wants to put in a good word for you and have you cover him while you’re gone.” He explains, a kind smile on his face. He seems to mean well, but the proposition is genuinely astounding to me. “You’ll have help, of course, and it’s only three weeks, but he’s your dad and he knows how much you’ve wanted to since you were a kid.”

“I can’t take that offer. I cannot jeopardise the site just because it was my childhood aspiration to run it.” I can’t begin to put my apprehension to the proposal in to words. It’s the _worst_ possible thing he could have said to me in this moment. Well, he could have said worse things, but this feels _pretty fucking bad._

“Well, me and Alto think you’re ready. And, we’re also doing it to prepare you for something else. There is talk among the regional managers of promoting you to assistant director position at a site in Michigan, and we both think they’re going to do it.” His glass is rested very firmly on the marble counter; I know he’s entirely serious. “We both think that with the experience of running the Site for three weeks will prepare you for the promotion before you have to leave, which will be very soon.”

“Why haven’t they told _me_ about this?” I interject. My cheeks are burning in an amalgamation of anger and depression. “It involves _me._ That’s _my_ life, and I’m not, I’m not-"

“It’s not set in stone, darlin.’ But Alto was speaking with some of the regional managers while submitting reports for other sites and it seems very likely it’s what they’ll be doing. We’ll know by midweek if they’re promoting you or not.”

“I’m not doing it.” I shake my head. He looks at me as if I’m joking, but I’m entirely serious. I’m not leaving California. “Me and Amelia will be split up, I’ll have to live on my own, in a place I barely know-”

“They’ll provide you a place to live in Detroit, we’ve been to Detroit. Sweetheart, you can’t let your fears hold you back.” He pauses as he watches me panic internally, and swats my hands down from my hair as I reach to pull it. “Don’t worry, I’ll come visit you.”

“Will Amelia come visit me?”

“It all depends, we don’t know much yet.” He takes a long sip of his wine. I don’t know how he still has so much in his cup as he places it down in the same spot.

“I’m not going. The regional directors can go... royally fuck themselves!”

“Darlin,’ it’s not a matter of what _you_ want. It’s what _they_ decide is best. You swore the oath to protect humanity, and you have to keep to it.”

_The oath._ The oath! It’s not about the fucking oath! It’s about my comfort, I mean, how am I gonna protect humanity when I want to impale myself?

I am screaming inside and yet it won’t come out my mouth. The thoughts refuse and instead slip straight down my gullet. I’m not crying. _I'm not crying. I’m not gonna cry over this. It’s not a big deal_.

I stand up and I walk away. I don’t want to see him or hear the news anymore. I just want bed. For a moment, as I peer through the door to the bedroom, I watch him as he sighs and effortlessly downs the rest of his wine. He doesn’t say a word as he lifts the glass casserole dish and slips it gently in to the fridge. The glint of his jewelled barrette hits my eye and I stumble away, and I fall in to bed where it is safe. I close my eyes.

I only close them for a second, but when I open them my surroundings are drastically different and there’s a searing, burning pain all over my face. I ignore it and step in to the lounge, finding that the blue light that filters in from the lounge is from the TV, and Amelia is slumped on the couch with her wild coils of hair caked in product. She’s braided and beaded two tendrils that sit either side of her face. It frames her nicely.

I don’t pay attention to what she’s watching but I slip on to the couch myself, and I find her cuddled up with my side. The way she nestles herself in with me calms me down, I find myself forgetting Jack ever came to the house with his casserole of bad omens.

“You’ve been asleep since I got back, baby.” Amelia whispers, and she smiles.

“Yeah, what time is it?” I shake my head. I feel foggy and disoriented and the searing pain on my face lingers in the background like static.

“Half-past one.” She giggles, and I nod in reply.

“What are you watching?” I say after a while. The buzzing on my face feels like thousands of tiny bug bites. Like I’m some kind of mosquito orgy ground.

“House of Cards.” She looks up at me and gasps. “Babe, your face.”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” I’m too disoriented to panic, but a thought begins to form that tells me me that maybe it’s happened; maybe I’ve finally become a prune. It brews for a few moments before I dismiss it. Those things don’t happen overnight.

“I don’t think you took those patch things off before you went to bed. You’ve broken out in a rash, you look awful!”

“I’ll be fine. I’m breathing.” I dismiss her fears. “It’s not anything allergenic.”

“Yeah, but I think you should get it checked out.”

“I’ll be fine.” I repeat myself to her and I slouch in to the couch with a satisfying squish. “I mean, what it gonna do? It’s just a rash.”

“I don’t know, there was that one skip that started as a rash and then turned you into some kinda, flesh being. I remember sneaking a peek of the file.”

“This feels like the beginning of a bad horror movie.”


	2. Fresh Meat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie meets her two-month late intern, who gives off strange vibes and loves violating dress codes.

The rash still burns on my face the next morning. I’m blotchy and patchy and I’m sticking out like a sore thumb. And also, I’m thirty-six. It doesn’t feel much different, and I haven’t noticed any wrinkles. But I have come into this part of my life looking and feeling like a fool, and I have an inkling it’s going to stay that way.  
  
I would like to reiterate the fact I am not precognitive. I am just vapid and paranoid. Vapid and paranoid.  
  
It’s a mantra of sorts. You get used to weird mantras after a while working for the Foundation. Things you like to repeat to yourself to ease the curves you’re thrown at day in and day out.  
  
I was thrown at a steep curve today, one I had no clue how to ease my way down. A note had been left on the desk that was signalling to me that I was to be mentoring a young woman named Yui Sakura, or something to that effect. She was a trainee researcher (or agent, she hadn’t decided, and she apparently had quite the broad skill set) and she was going to start training two months after the last batch of students came in. Apparently, Miss. Yui Sakura had been scouted, and she was just so good they had to start a brand new program just for her.  
  
I thought it might have been a joke of some sorts while I was sorting through her file, which had some excellently fraudulent sounding information tucked away inside. Yui Sakura was just seventeen, studying at Harvard University on a scholarship. She had been there for a semester and she was on her way to getting a masters. She had graduated from kindergarten in a day. Frankly, I’m ready to shred the ridiculous file when I hear a knock at my door.  
  
“Come in,” I call, and the door opens to reveal Dr Benjamin Kondraki and a young, smiling woman with bright green hair, red lips and a hefty dose of star-shaped freckles. She also presents as extremely caucasian, and I know I shouldn’t judge her by her looks but I can’t shake the idea of her being an ‘otaku,’ or a ‘weeaboo,’ or whatever those sorts like to call themselves.  
  
“Bright.” Kondraki nods, and I clear my throat as I stand from my chair, pushing the file away from me. I roll my eyes at the blush on his cheeks. “This is your, um, intern. She got lost on her way here.”  
  
“You weren’t waiting where I was told you’d be waiting, Miss Bright.” Her voice is perfect if you consider perfect to be high and grating but somehow simultaneously like a pillow. I don’t like it. It’s unsettling. And I don’t like *her.* I am not a ‘Miss,’ I am a doctor with a PhD in theoretical physics. It’s my title. I spent over six years working for it.  
  
She steps into my office and I feel violated. Kondraki leaves and the door slams shut as a draft pulls it.  
  
“Excuse me, Yui, but I do have a PhD, so I would prefer it if you referred to me as ‘Dr. Bright.’ Thank you.” I can’t think of a more polite way to phrase it.  
  
“Oh, but there are two of you.”  
  
“Yes, there are two Dr Brights here.” I nod, and I pull up a chair so she can sit with me. Even if I don’t want her to, I have little to no choice in the matter, which is horrible. I’ll be leaving soon, she’ll be transferred somewhere else. That is all I have to hope.  
  
“Is he your dad?”  
  
I don’t want to answer her and give her the information, but I can’t find a way around telling her what she’s asked. “...Yes, but we both have a PhD. You’re just going to have to get used to it, just as everyone else has.”  
  
“So, skips. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yes, it is. You’ll get used to it the longer you work here.” I slip my hair behind my ear and I begrudgingly reach for her file, which I flip through and look over. It’s hard to believe one person did all of this. “Quite the interesting track record you have here. Seventeen and working an internship here? I was twenty, and only because my father put in a good word.”  
  
“What’s the difference between you and your dad, Dr Bright?”  
  
“He is the director of personnel, I am a senior researcher. I have my own group of researchers and you will be assigned to shadow them the entire time you’re here. You’re not going to do much, I’m afraid, it’s quite boring. You make teas, coffee, fetch pens, listen to what I and the researchers in my team believe about the SCP we are researching.” I slip the file down on to the desk. She’s fixated on me, eyes like a hawk. I still have a horrible feeling of foreboding in my gut but I have to show her respect, which is always a two-way thing. She is my intern and so far, she has done nothing wrong. “It’s a very good learning experience if you’re willing to listen to what we say. You’re very welcome to take notes, but you must hand any classified information on your person to me at the end of the day. That’s extremely important, we have this special note-taking paper and if it leaves the facility it causes a complete lockdown situation, which is just a huge hassle for everyone involved, and it gets you booted from the program. Obviously, no taking photos of anything you see here or we will have to destroy whatever you used to take them, and it will count as a mark on your personal record. Get enough of those and you will be sentenced to death by firing squad. Have you signed the safety waivers?”  
  
“Safety waivers?” She tilts her head.  
  
“No worries, I think I have them.” I reach for my filing cabinet, swivelling my chair towards the neatly organised papers and I flick through them. Oddly enough, nothing’s there, despite the fact I remember squirrelling a few away the last time I was dealing with student interns. “Would you hang on a second? I’m gonna have to make a printer run.”  
  
She nods and I sheepishly smile as I stand up. Fuck it, I’m also pretty thirsty.  
  
“Do you want any tea, coffee, hot chocolate?” I shrug. She shakes her head. “Alright, suit yourself. Stay here, or if you have to wander off don’t touch anything you don’t recognise.”  
  
There’s a knock at the door. Dubious, I open it and I see a young assistant researcher holding a huge stack of papers. One peep at the colossal bounty on his chest tells me they’re the exact security waivers I need the intern to sign.  
  
“Do you need any waivers? Dr Williams printed too many!”  
  
This entire situation is *wrong.* Nobody prints five hundred waivers, or anything close to that. There is no Dr Williams. Assistant researchers don’t deliver things that don’t have anything to do with their projects. *Assistants* deliver things. This guy is not an assistant. His badge says he’s an *assistant researcher. What the fuck?*  
  
“Is that the whole package, or just one specific waiver?”  
  
“The whole package, Doctor.” I’m fairly sure I see the papers morph in his hands. He’s shaking in fear like he’s gonna burst into a million pieces.  
  
“Alright, then.” I slip a small booklet from him. He’s papery white and I can see a vein in his head throbbing. “Are you okay? Do you need to go to the infirmary?”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
 _He’s not fine. He is as far from fine as he can get._  
  
“Are you sure? I mean, it’s free, it’s not like normal healthcare.”  
  
“I gotta go now.” He shivers and runs away, and the door slams shut again.  
  
“I always get worried about those little assistant researchers. They never take any time to breathe.” _They’re actually extremely lazy._ “You’ll be like them someday, hopefully. I see you have some real potential in your file.”  
  
“That guy was weird.”  
  
“They can be. The people here are wildly eccentric at best, but it’s a collection of the absolute best minds in the world.” I smile and I sit down at my desk again, sliding her the waiver. “Read through this and sign it, then I can introduce you to the team.”  
  
“Sure.” She nods and takes the waiver, reading slowly with her finger running under the printed text.  
  
The intercom screams and Alto’s secretary begins speaking without warning. Yui isn’t fazed by it at all, but she’s listening.  
  
 _Dr Jackie Bright to see Director Clef in his office. As soon as possible._  
  
She looks up at me and I smile patiently. “I’m gonna have to take this, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Well, I’ve finished signing.” She hands the waivers to me and places my pen back in the rack. I never saw her take it. “Can you take me to the team first?”  
  
“I might as well.” I stand and motion for her to do the same, and I slip the waivers down on to the desk and I lead her through my office, down the corridor and into my team’s laboratory. I catch the sight of my researchers, who are holding a tea-drinking competition, and I wait for them to finish.  
  
“Dr Bright!” One yells, mouth full of cookie.  
  
“Two straight cups?” I raise an eyebrow and step around them to the head of the table, even though it’s circular. “Impressive.”  
  
The boy, a junior researcher, snorts a heaping mouthful of boiling tea through his nose, and I hand him a napkin from the depths of my pocket. He dabs at his fresh scald wounds and I feel viciously inadequate.  
  
“Infirmary. Now.” I point out the door and he runs off, his eyes streaming and red. “That’s gotta hurt.”  
  
He reminds me of a friend - Osbourne Jones - who had bright pink and blue hair back in 1999. We talk over drinks sometimes, if he comes down from Oregon to visit me and Amelia, but since he was transferred to Minnesota and then to Texas and then to Louisiana and then to Oregon we haven’t spoken too much. Oz was in a wheelchair because of a chronic pain disorder, though. He still is. John, my junior researcher who has just run off with a face full of tea, doesn’t. I have his entire medical history on file. I sigh at his stupidity, and I motion for Yui to join my side.  
  
“So, this is Yui, she’s our new, two-month late intern. Don’t fill her head with shit, don’t let her touch anything bad, get her to make you tea and coffee and file your reports and print your stuff. You all know the drill. And for the love of God, don’t get her involved in your little... competitions, because we’re most likely gonna be under surveillance, we are supposed to be professionals.”  
  
“We are professionals, Dr Bright.” Glenn, who is probably one of my worst juniors, but means well, nods at me and then nods at Yui. “You can trust us with her.”  
  
There is a general nod and agreement in my little researcher posse. I have a lot of juniors in my team, mostly because they need to be formally educated somewhere and my skillset is in physics and not anything biological. My group will tend to be dealing with energy and motion, which is to them kindergarten work. They’re brilliant little fuckers, actually.  
  
“Good, cause I have to go see Director Clef and tell him that you’re all little shits.” I’m harsh on them, but really, I love them.  
  
“You love us, really.” Glenn smiles as I leave the room. He’s got stoner hair and he’s nonchalant about everything he does. He also offered me edibles at last year’s Christmas party, which I declined as I am in fact a child of God. I’m not. But it was funny to see the look on his face when I told him I would pray for him and his substance misuse.  
  
I probably would have taken the edibles if we weren’t in such a professional setting, because, free pot brownies. Nobody has given me a free pot brownie since I was about nineteen. I haven’t done pot since I was nineteen, because it wasn’t free, and I tried very desperately to be straight edge in my twenties. The no-drugs thing kinda worked to clear my head a little, which helped with my thesis and eventually the job. I couldn’t keep my hands off cigarettes, coffee or alcohol, though. It was coffee at first. Coffee is a gateway drug. To what? More coffee, mostly.  
  
Then you find yourself shaking and chainsmoking behind the back of an Arby’s at the tender age of twenty-seven in the hammering rain because the absolute deadline for your report that will change your future is due in a total of seventeen minutes and you’re not sure whether your test results are valid and whether you even wrote it about the right skip but you handed it in anyway because you thought you might’ve suffered a psychotic break if you had to work on it any longer.  
  
It happens. It happens more often than I think it will. A total of three times, to be exact.  
  
I escape the winding corridors and hop into a crowded elevator just about to close, and I stand uncomfortably in the midsts of what feels like a million different people all hung around me. There is a gentle murmur in the back of the elevator, but no more. I regret not waiting for the next one, but I feel I have to make up for talking to my team first. The intercom said *As Soon As Possible,* but is that really true? Dad would want me up as soon as possible.  
  
The elevator shoots up and I feel an instant sickness rising from my back. The scent of sweat from someone’s dirty shirt is emanating in my direction and it pierces my nose with every waft of speed the elevator gives. I think it has too many people in it and I feel guilty. It’s not hard to wait for an elevator. *It’s not hard to wait for an elevator.*  
  
I’m pushed and shoved by people that have reached the right floor until I am lone for the next two floors, reaching the top offices. My dads are waiting behind the frosted glass, and as I step out the elevator they are clearly hugging one another; the outline is clear through the glass even if I can’t discern their features. I wait for them patiently to finish.  
  
They’re taking a while. It’s okay they love one another, but in work, there is a line to be drawn they never pay attention to whatsoever, especially since their engagement. They just showed up to work and announced it in front of everyone and since then, I feel they’ve been frankly notorious for their excessive PDA. I mean, they’ve always been this way. They’re just shameless now.  
  
Everyone *knew* they were dating even before Jack showed up with a diamond ring on his finger, but I suppose it was nice for them to be free about it. They had been together since before I was born. I knock the glass door and I see their silhouette separate into two separate forms before the taller one - who I reckon is Alto - comes to the door to open it.  
  
I’m right; he pulls me in and hugs me. He shields my face while Jack does something, I can hear him rooting around in the back. A lighter clicks and Alto sets me free to see Jack has brought me a small cake with a candle. It’s nothing much, and neither of them sing, which I appreciate. It really doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would when it’s just them, and I assume Amelia will do a similar thing later.  
  
“Blow it out, sweetheart!” Jack soothes and pets the back of my head gently. He’s always been good at babying me. It’s apt, because I’m his only child nowadays. The twins left with their father a decade or two ago, I can’t really remember when they left, or why. It left a hole in his heart; he missed them so much, they were his sons too. We visited them a few times, but not for a while. They live in Detroit, or at least in Michigan. Convenient.  
  
I blow and the scent of output flames (which I have always found pleasing) fills my nose. I take a deep whiff in and then I look at both of them in thanks.  
  
“I was working, you know.” I sigh and smile at them. They both cuddle me in return for a moment. Neither of them have said the blasted words yet, which is nice of them.  
  
“I know, I know.” Alto begins, crooning softly. “But it’s your birthday, beauty, and we wanted to do something special.”  
  
I can’t be mad at them. They’re just trying to be nice, and they’re doing it out of love. They’re my parents, they’ve been there since I was a child and I feel they deserve to celebrate it if they want to. *I don’t know.* I just know that I feel comfortable because it’s *them,* and they’re not threatening.  
  
“We also got you a present!” Jack exclaims. He’s always so excited around my birthday. Today is no exception. “It’s not much, but what do you get for the person who doesn’t want anything?” He skips to the desk and retrieves a small white box - it’s not wrapped, but a lovely scarlet ribbon is tied in a bow at the top - and brings it back to me with a smile.  
  
“Casserole?” I question, raising an eyebrow. I think he knows I’m joking because both of them giggle.  
  
“It’s not a casserole, but we think you’ll like it just the same.” Alto smiles and tightens his grip around my shoulder. He’s holding far too tight but it feels like a hug and I can’t refuse him.  
  
Jack hands me the box and smiles softly. I take it from him, I pull the ribbon by the tendril and it’s well-tied bow falls apart as if it’s dust. I take the top off the box, revealing a beautiful pair of leather riding gloves, furry and soft on the inside and a gorgeous tanned leather on the outside. I know what they’re confirmation of but oddly, I don’t mind, they’re too pretty for me to be mad.  
  
Besides, I don’t think I mind the idea of going to Michigan right now. It doesn’t sound too bad. There’s such a thing as Skype and there are texts and phone calls and I can come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’ll miss my little researchers, I really will, but they’ll be okay on their own.  
  
“Thanks, dads.” I’m not sure which one to address, but they both cuddle me anyways. “I’m going to Michigan, aren’t I?”  
  
“Yeah, honey. Your dad got an email this morning.” Jack mumbles. He’s oddly gentle about it; I think he understands a little more after my outburst last night.  
  
I think he was a bit more of a prick last night. He’s stressed about the wedding, I know he is, but does he have to be an asshole? Maybe. I’ve never planned a wedding. I’m not a wedding planner. Then again, neither are they, but they seem to be doing a pretty good job. We sit on the soft couch, Alto sprawled and Jack more refined and close to himself. I sit in the middle, an uncomfortable amalgamation of the two. I got raised that way, at any rate.  
  
“Assistant manager, though. Isn’t that wonderful?” Jack smiles. He seems to be genuinely happy for me rather than feeling bad for me and masking it with a smile. Maybe he feels sorry for himself? I don’t know.  
  
“We’re both really proud.” Alto smiles and nods gently. “You’re going up in the world! We should-”  
  
“We’re not going to celebrate, my love, but know we’re so proud of you.”  
  
“When do I leave?” I look to Alto for an answer; he was the one with the email, he probably has the information. Unless Jack does.  
  
“Ten weeks, I think. They’re still building the Site you’ll be working on, so it’ll be a while.” No, Alto has the information.  
  
“I thought they weren’t building any more Sites in North America.”  
  
“Apparently they are. I went to a conference some months ago and they want to start expanding again, especially in the north.” Jack sighs. “Something to do with the volume of small anomalies being found there, I don’t really remember. I was focused on the hors d’oeuvres, they were free and tasty!”  
  
“Oh, honey.” Alto holds Jack’s hand through my shoulders. “Go on, Jackie, go back to work.” I stand, and Jack springs into his fiancé’s arms like a locust. He’s so _clingy,_ I don’t get how Alto’s put up with him for almost forty years. I think Alto likes being cuddled, though. I think he doesn’t care.  
  
“I better, I have a new intern.”  
  
“New intern, huh?” Alto freezes and moves Jack from his lap. “I didn’t authorise a new intern.”  
  
“You didn’t?” I face them both. Alto looks terrified, Jack looks mostly unbothered. I don’t think Jack _cares_ about security anymore. It’s his fiancé’s job, after all.  
  
“No. I didn’t authorise shit. Jack?”  
  
“I signed a whole bunch of papers on my desk this morning, it might have been in there. Maybe the regionals sent her here, you know what they’re like.” He inspects his sparkly powder-blue nails, flicking off a small piece of glitter into the dusty rays of autumn sun filtering through the blinds.  
  
“Do they have the power to do that?” Alto looks back at his fiancé and squints his eyes a little. Coupling the rays and the glimmer in his boyfriend’s nails makes it harder to see.  
  
“I think, I mean, they probably do. It sounds like something they’ve got the power to do.” It’s me that replies; Jack really doesn’t seem to have much interest in the situation. He seems to have found something in his nails.  
  
Why doesn’t he care? Does he not see that it’s a huge risk? Maybe he knows he won’t get in trouble for it. Or maybe he knows there’s some kind of quick solution, like shooting a person in the head. And I know that I’ve only just met her, but Yui is barely seventeen and I desperately do not want to shoot a child in the head. Maybe it’s a job for the amnestics department. I don’t know and I don’t particularly want to know, this sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen.  
  
‘*I don’t know*’ has been my downfall lately, and it is getting on my nerves. Really, really getting on my nerves. I hate making excuses to myself.  
  
“Keep a close eye on her, Jackie. If she does anything strange then let me know, we’ll sort her out.” Alto looks left and right, then down at his pocket. “Y’know what? I’ll contact the regionals. They’ll confirm for me. But still, keep a good eye on her, it’s dangerous to... not. If you get me.”  
  
“I get you, dad. Don’t fret.” I watch him deflate into the couch like a bounce house. “Not my first rodeo.”  
  
“Oh, but it is, beauty.”  
  
“And why’s that, dad?” I’m becoming about as uninterested as Jack - who is, by the way, still staring at his nails (I’m starting to wonder where he gets them done) - which is saying something.  
  
“You, my darling, have never witnessed a reality bender.”


	3. A Nice Day For A White Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack Bright and Alto Clef get married, but unto before being interrupted by an unwanted visitor.

To be quite honest, I’m astounded that I have finally made it to the wedding of Jack Bright and Alto Clef. Not only am I astounded that I am here, in the first place, but I am astounded that both are alive to marry one another rather than lying in ditches. Or trapped in walls. Or having killed each other. Or just fucking off and becoming sheep farmers in northern Greenland where they would have never been found again and would be pretty happy with a hoard of sheep and impromptu vows. 

Instead, my dads are stood together at the altar, hands joined and eyes connected. I can see they’re speaking softly and near silently, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Probably something like ‘you look beautiful’ and ‘I better, you bastard.’ It sounds like a relatively them thing to say, especially to each other. 

I have been waiting over twenty years for this moment, and they have been waiting precisely thirty seven. _Thirty seven years_. It’s a long time to wait, a long time to be in love for, but here they are. They’re going to be together forever, I can feel it. 

It really is the most _them_ wedding imaginable, which I’m grateful for. Jack’s veil is longer than my dress, well past his knees and possibly the thickest bounty of lace and netting I’ve ever seen. Alto isn’t even wearing a tuxedo jacket, just a black silk shirt which he hasn’t even buttoned up the whole way, but he’s still wearing Transformers-Branded cufflinks. Also, his heels are higher than mine, and I’ve got a small pair of heels on myself. His aren’t too tall, but still somehow make him look like he’s about twelve feet tall. They look so different, and yet I can see their souls through their eyes that declare they are so deeply in love with one another. It’s wonderful, it’s truly wonderful to see.

It’s more than the clothes that makes me genuinely proud to be here, it’s theming. Flowers litter the walls and floor, torches hang on the walls even though it’s the morning, and we are stood in the light of what feels like a thousand stained glass windows. The doors are flung wide open and held by statues draped in white tulle. My father’s eye for the gaudy and garish yet utterly charming confuses me. We’re also in a chapel, and I don’t know how they got the pastor to agree with it, but they certainly did. They’re not Christian by any means of the imagination, but I think Alto’s mother wanted them to have a church-ish wedding. It’s strange, because in my many, many interactions with her, she’s been the witchiest woman I’ve ever met. 

She’s stood behind me right now, rather than Amelia - who was not invited to be a part of the procession at all, because Alto likes her even less than Jack does - and she is nodding solemnly. A wisp of her hidden hair, which is as black as night, waves effortlessly from underneath her patterned hair wrap. Apparently, Alto gets his blond hair from his father, who I have never seen, and I’m not sure if I ever will at this point. I think he might be dead. I think he was killed by his wife.

I met her when I was thirteen and to me, she knew absolutely everything I could ever want to know. She still does. She’s so wise, and her sense in fashion is more than I could ever comprehend. Even now, she looks like a veritable Queen, in vivid dyes and patterns, whereas I am just wearing simple floral print. I still think I’m pretty, because earlier she told me I was pretty, and I can see it in her smile when I glance back to look at her. It’s hard to keep attention in a place like this. The whitewashed walls have a very distinctive scent, like chalk, and it’s hard to keep my focus off the calming smell. 

I don't know what kind of church this is, actually. I've never been one for religion in general, and I didn't attend any religious studies classes when I was in high school in lieu of going to visit the social education teacher who was kind and very unlike the strict, passive aggressive religious studies teacher. Mrs. Smith was, and still is a good friend of mine, much like Persephone. I hate to say it, but my birth mother was gone by the time I was 13 and my other mother slowly drifted away from me as she slowly became more and more receptive of the secret relationship between my fathers. Having Alto's mother and Mrs. Smith around helped make me not-as-much-of-a-disaster as I could have been. Yes, I could have been even worse than this, which is frankly hard to believe.

The Pastor has arrived, and she has silver, wolf like hair down to her waist and scarlet ceremonial robes, more embroidered than even Jack's veil and possibly hundreds of years old. I don't know how I know that, I know next to nothing about historical fashion, but I just get the impression from the handiwork of the embroidery and the wiggles and curves and beading. She appears from the side of the wide white room and she makes her way to the middle of the altar, where she stands behind her ornate lectern and adjusts the stack of papers adorned in black and purple ink. I take another anxious look around the chapel before fixing my eyes on her.

"Greetings and salutations, my friends, and welcome to sunny California. Welcome to the long-awaited wedding of Jack and Alto, two very good friends of mine who actually saved my life in the early 80s, and I would like to thank the both of them once more before they become one; thank you both. I am Pastor Gail Harcombe, and I would like to welcome you to the wedding of Jack and Alto." Her voice is as feral and coarse as her wild mane of hair, and it suits her well. "I think we are all very happy to be here today; we have guests from New England, Massachussetts, Louisiana, Nevada and even the beautiful New York. I've always had a particular love for weddings because of the beautiful families and unions that I see, and today is certainly no exception." 

Her arms are wide and I feel faith and a love of God emanate from her like some blind preacher or saint, but all I can see from either of my fathers is happiness. I've never met her before, but they clearly have, and I'm racking my head as to figure out... when? Early 80s? I'd remember a woman with a prescence like hers, I've got fairly good childhood memories and they surely love tormenting me whenever they get the chance. 

"If everyone here could turn off any noisy distractions, like their phones, their pagers, or just give a pacifier to any children, it would make this beautiful ceremony run a lot smoother, thank you very much. I know, for a fact, that everyone here today has put a certain amount of pride and maybe even a little bit of soul in to this wedding, and it serves these two right. It is my honour to perform this ceremony for these two after thirty seven years of being in a, frankly, inspiring relationship.” Stevie Nicks. She reminds me of Stevie Nicks, the presence, the tinge in her voice and her worldly, witchy stance that fills the room. “I’ve always enjoyed looking at both sides of the love between two people when I script for weddings. When I asked Alto if there were any scriptures or writings that reminded him of Jack, he stared at me blankly for quite some time and then asked if we could move on to something else. Because he didn’t know. I am very correct in saying he cannot put the way he feels about Jack in to words, so I chose something I knew he would feel as I read it out, right here. It’s a little sonnet written by Shakespeare, known as Sonnet 116, and I think it might describe a little bit of the love these two feel for one another. Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” She takes a very deep pause and surveys the room with her steely eyes. “It’s quite heavy, it really is, but what this poem is saying is that love is perfect and unchanging, it never changes even if your lover does. This poem says love is never changed by time, and will last until the very end, which I feel is just the most perfect sentiment for the way Alto feels about his soon-to-be-husband.”

I’m fairly sure I can see Alto trembling and smiling, and his eyes are misting. Granny dabs at her own eyes with her vivid handkerchief, and I’m not sure how to react but I know I’m smiling. Granny puts her hand on my shoulder. I look across the filled pews; Amelia isn’t really reacting, but she doesn’t know them the way I do. She only stares blankly at the altar.

“I would like you both to look each other in the eye and remember the very moment you fell in love. For those of you that don’t know, they were in fabulous Las Vegas, and they had argued all night before ceasing their endless hurling of insults - and kissing one another. Alto, I’d like to ask right now, before the two of you become one, why did you kiss Jack?”

“Because I didn’t know what else to do.” Alto smiles and laughs nervously. There’s a bright red blush on his cheek and I can tell, he’s close to weeping. I’ve never seen him cry so freely, even though he’s barely even crying. “I mean, I don’t know, Jack, you looked a very certain way and I felt a really weird connection with you and I just grabbed you and kissed you.”

“And, Jack, why did you let him?” Gail’s smile is genuine and beautiful.

“I liked it. And I was angry, and it felt strange in my chest, but a good kind of strange, and I’m so glad I let you do it.” They’re both messy semblances of themselves and shaking, even though this is just a legal confirmation of obvious truths.

“It could have been so easy just to walk out the room, but I didn’t, and now I’m here, and I’m just so glad that I had the nerve to kiss you, because I’m here now.” Blubbering messes, the both of them. 

“I would like to remind you both that today is real, today is very real, and today is perfect.” Gail looks at them both and smiles. “Now, as this is a mostly religious wedding, I have to ask a question nobody will have an answer to. If anyone has any objections to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace.” 

As her voice drops to expected silence, I hear a loud screech and proclamation from a voice I know, but can’t quite pinpoint. ‘Stop the wedding!’ It screams, and my eyes widen in fear. A dark, small figure emerges from the open doors in a long lace gown. I look to her face and I cannot fucking believe it.

It’s the intern. It is the fucking intern. The intern! _The intern!_ The intern I took on two weeks ago who showed up two months late with a stupid weeaboo name. She can’t write reports about the object we’re researching, she can barely make a decent cup of coffee and **SHE IS CRASHING MY PARENTS WEDDING. SHE HAS MET THEM A TOTAL OF TWO TIMES IN THE TWO WEEKS SHE HAS BEEN MY INTERN. _SHE IS OBJECTING TO A MARRIAGE THIRTY SEVEN YEARS IN THE MAKING AND SHE HAS SHOWN UP IN A WHITE WEDDING GOWN._**

There is silence. Nobody knows this girl except for me and the two men at the altar. She is not welcome here. She is not a family friend who has hung around either of my fathers since childhood. This is unacceptable, disgusting, and frankly **FUCKING UNPROFESSIONAL**. How can you do this to men you have just met? To men you barely know? How could you do this to anyone? Objecting to a marriage is a dick move in real life, but holy fuck, this is despicable. If it weren’t for professionalism, I would have punched her. I want to punch her.

All eyes in the room are fixed on her and her gown. She is even holding a bouquet of flowers that match the theming of the wedding. 

“Dr. Clef!” She screams down the aisle. She doesn’t need to, everyone is already listening. “It should be me you’re marrying, not him!”

Everyone’s silent. I’m fairly sure Jack is actually crying now, I can see him shake from behind. Alto has taken the liberty of holding him close and petting his back to comfort him. I can see pure, concentrated fury in every facet of his being, but I know he’s too paralysed to speak. So am I, but the words fall out anyway.

“Are you the most despicable human being earth has to offer, or are you just fucking stupid?” My voice is raised to a point I rarely get to and my face is red, I can feel it in my cheeks and under my eyes. Granny always objects when I can’t keep my composure - especially when I was a teenager - but she doesn’t now, she stands back and lets me lose my shit. I storm from my position near the altar and march down the aisle, dragging her down and out the doors by the arm. The harsh starched lace of her antique sleeve burns my fingers but I cannot let go of her. She looks terrified just from the look on my face, and I’m glad I’m having some kind of effect on her, but this is the wrong time to be proud of my abilities in social situations. “Are you deluded? Are you delusional?”

“I’m madly in love with him, you heartless monster!” She screams in return, fighting against my grasp. I cannot fucking believe this is happening. I want to be dreaming. She is a mortifying excuse for a human being.

“You have met my father twice for a combined total of two and a half minutes, Yui.” I don’t want to hurt her, she’s only seventeen, but it’s probably better from humanity.

“And he’s the one for me!” She protests, trying to pry my fingers off her arm. “This is my mother’s dress, monster, don’t you dare ruin it!”

“Get out.” I push her away and let go of her arm. “You leave here and you don’t come back, do you understand?”

“No! I won’t go! I will marry to Dr. Clef!” She stands back on her own two feet, but before I can do something, a nearby security man from just outside the chapel lifts her away and takes her out with a nod. I’m thankful he was there, even if I don’t quite know why, but I am left standing on the marble stairs to the chapel feeling like a conscious fool. 

Granny comes from behind me and holds my shoulder like she always does when she knows I’m crying, which I am, and it’s embarrassing because nothing has happened to me. This isn’t my wedding to cry at, it’s my parents, and they deserve so much better than for their wedding to be crashed by a self-righteous brat. Granny lifts my hunched body and she takes me to the back of the chapel so nobody else can see me cry, pulling two chairs and sitting them in the corner.

Everyone is deathly silent and I want to run very far away from this place so I am never seen again. Dealing with people is mortifying. I didn’t want to come to the rescue. I didn’t want to make this about myself. But what was anybody supposed to do in that moment? Wait for her to leave? She wasn’t going to. People like that aren’t affected by social consciousness in any sense of the word. People who ruin weddings are bad people, not the people that try to stop them. I think. I don’t know. I hate cobbling excuses fo feel better about myself in situations I could have just done better in.

Gail clears her worldly throat; she’s as stunned as me and equally angered, though I can only hear it in her voice. “I would like to apologise to Jack and Alto for that despicable interruption. Could somebody close those doors, perhaps?” 

Granny lifts herself from her chair and slams them shut. The statues shake slightly in fear; the cherubs look as if they’re crying, too. Jack seems to have recovered himself from the incident. I overreacted. I overreacted by a lot.

“Thank you, Persephone.” Gail nods in granny’s direction. Is that how Alto and Jack know her? “If we could continue, I’m going to go straight to joining these two men in marriage. Marriage, my friends, is a promise made by two people to love one another through the hardest, most trying times in your lives. It is the highest, most prestigious commitment two can make to each other, and often the hardest to follow through with. And even through the most embarrassing spectacle I have ever seen at a wedding, the love between these two men shows not one sign of wavering. It is with this revelation I say to you both, I hope that just as in Sonnet 116, your love bears it out even to the edge of doom. I say with a smile you do not need my hope. Could the ring bearer bring the rings, please?”

A small boy - I believe he is my cousin - brings two ornate rings on a purple cushion. His walk down the aisle is dainty and calculated, as if he’s scared to fall. He brings the rings up without trifle and skips gently when he has completed his task, returning to the crowd.

“Rings are a symbol of love.” Gail proclaims, holding up one of the sparkling pieces. “They are never ending; they go round and round in a circle, chasing like an ouroboros. A ring doesn’t have to be a ring, it can be anything that symbolises love, but many of us choose today to wear rings made of precious materials, to not only show our affinity for love itself but also so they will last many lifetimes, through hand holding and gentle caresses and cooking and walking dogs, and to be passed down from generation to generation. Rings can hold so much love in them because they are truly eternal. Two wedding rings can hold the burden, the happiness and the history of an entire family when they are slipped on the right fingers. Alto, could you take the ring you have chosen for Jack and put it on the tip of his finger?”

Alto plucks the ring - silver, and set with a band of unbroken opal which refracts the light of the stained glass and casts down a prism of unprecedentedly beautiful colours - from the velvet cushion and slips it on to the first rung of Jack’s finger, just past his purple nail. 

“I’m starting to think any religious connotations in this wedding are frankly unneeded; if the Lord does not see these two as wedded, I don’t think anybody could. Alto, will you repeat after me?”

“I can try and repeat.” Alto replies and holds Jack’s free hand with an iron vice. 

“I love you.”

Alto looks like he’s about to crumple under some kind of invisible weight. “I love you.” I’m seriously worried about him. I think he might burst in to tears at any moment. Granny’s hand is flatly resting over her chest and her kerchief is wrapped decoratively around her fingers. She doesn’t cry at weddings, but I think she might make an exception for this one.

“I promise to be your faithful husband.” 

“I promise to be your faithful husband.” His hands shake and the rest of Jack shakes with him, like a harmonising cloud of anxiety. I have no clue why he’s anxious, it’s not that hard to copy someone.

“Through the bad times and the good times.”

“Through the bad times and the good times.” He’s so sincere. I want to feel that way about Amelia some day. Maybe I could marry her. But then again, maybe I couldn’t. Maybe she doesn’t want to get married. I’ll have to ask.

“When you are sick and when you are radiant with health.”

“When you’re sick and when you’re radiant with health.” His words are louder than even Gail’s. He’s feral, for sure -more like a coyote than a wolf - but he lacks her witchiness. He makes up for it in enthusiasm.

“I promise you my unconditional, never ending love.”

“I promise you my unconditional and never ending love.” He’s taken Gail over entirely, but I think that’s maybe her point. I know he means it. I figured long ago he would never stop loving Jack, and I guess that’s why I’m so cool with him.

Granny’s crying delicately and she dabs at her eyes with her decorative kerchief. I’m crying too, but I have no hankie and neither do I want to ruin my dress with tears, it cost a lot of money and I really don’t have all the money in the world.

“I give you my life and I give you unwavering trust.”

“I give you my life and I give you all the trust.” He’s beginning to cool down, it seems. He’s still shaking, but not to the frequency of before, and Jack’s able to keep himself marginally still now. I notice now Jack is shaking himself, but he’s so much more refined. The difference between crude oil and naphtha, perhaps?

“When you look at this ring, please remember that I love you always.”

“When you look at this ring, remember that I love you always.” 

“You may slide the ring all the way on to his finger.”

He’s a little bit excited and he slips it down as soon as he hears her speak. He helped her write the vows, I think. I’d have to ask him. I will as long as he isn’t mad at me for partially ruining his wedding. 

“It’s your turn, Jack.” Gail smiles softly and Jack takes the second ring from the cushion; solid black and set with tiny chips of onyx and opal around the edges. Of course, even their wedding rings match. He can barely stop smiling as he gently taps the ring just to the top of Alto’s finger, and he can’t stop looking at his own ring. This is the first time he’s seen it, and the first time Alto has seen his own. “Can you repeat after me?”

“I can do that.” He nods at her for a moment before returning his gaze to Alto. 

“I love you.”

“I love you.” I can see him biting his lip from all the way over here, and there’s a happy warble, or maybe a break, in his voice as he speaks.

“I promise to be your faithful husband.”

“I promise to be your faithful husband.” His voice is still breaking. I can’t comprehend how excited he must be in this moment, the emotions he must be feeling. It makes me nearly... envious. Not because I can’t feel, but because I’ve never had an opportunity, or really, a chance to feel or express that much. I don’t do much. 

“Through the good and the bad.”

“Through the good and bad.” He’s bitten through his thick caked lipstick, I can see that much through his veil. I can’t see any blood. I hope he’s not bleeding, that has to be a bad omen of sorts.

“When you are sick and when you are radiant with health.”

“When you’re sick and when you’re radiant with health.” This is starting to get laborious. Why do they keep talking? Can’t they just say their own vows rather than copying Gail?

“I promise you my unconditional, never ending love.”

“I promise you my unconditional, never ending love.” He puts a lot of stock in to his words, I’ve noticed. Is there a right or wrong way to do it? People don’t sound like this in movies, but then, in movies, it doesn’t go on for this long. 

“I give you my life and I give you unwavering trust.”

“I give you my life and I give you my unwavering trust.” I think it’s going to end soon. Please, god, I hope it ends soon. Just want them to kiss and be happy and know if they’re angry with me or not.

“When you look at this ring, please remember that I love you always.”

“When you look at your ring, remember that I love you always.” They both skipped the ‘please’ which I find rather amusing. It’s a demand rather than a request. It’s very them.

“You may slip the ring all the way on to his finger, Jack.” Gail proclaims, and Jack flicks it down with a smile. “I’m sure the two of you don’t want to wait any longer, and it’s my honour to say what you’ve been waiting to hear for almost forty years; by the powers vested in my by the state of California, I now pronounce you married, and you may kiss. I don’t mind who kisses who, just get it done.”

Alto gently flicks Jack’s veil and leans down to kiss him very tamely on the lips; I’ve honestly seen them kiss with more passion at work, but he’s smiling widely. The kiss, the big one at least, is over, but Jack instead pulls him down and kisses him with fervour. They’re married, and the chapel bells are chiming and the birds are singing and I’m fairly sure I just saw a bunch of butterflies fly in to the room. I’m no longer a bastard. I can say with pride that I am no longer a bastard. 

================

The ceremony was simple despite the rings and Gail’s lavish proclamations, and perhaps what I believe to be butterflies, but holy fuck, the reception is so much worse. There is a hors d’oeuvres buffet and a candy buffet and probably many other buffets I simply haven’t found yet. Champagne on tap, the cake has a sword sticking out the top and yet my parents are sat in a dark corner with their autistic daughter just because she cannot cope with the rest of them. I love them, I really do, but I wish they didn’t make so many fucking allowances for me. Can’t they just enjoy themselves? Do they have to accommodate for me in every situation? Can’t they just be their own people and leave me be? 

Here’s the dilemma; I can’t tell them to leave me be, because it’s rude. So I can’t say ‘hey, daddy, maybe you could just go and enjoy this party you’re probably putting yourself in to debt for’ because then it’s mean. And I really, really don’t know how to say it ‘politely.’ Or how to say it at all.

They danced, and danced, and danced, of course they did. But they missed their goodbyes because they were with me, and I had been left by Amelia hours prior. Work called, apparently. Work calls her a lot.

“And you promise you’re not mad at me?” I sigh and lean back in my chair to refill my glass with more on-tap champagne. It’s at certain general spots, and it’s right by my table. There are just so many reasons to be sat in the corner. “Really promise?”

“Yes, baby girl!” Jack exclaims. I think he might be on his third glass of champagne... I stopped counting a while ago, it’s pretty good stuff. I prefer margaritas, but I think that would clog up the taps. 

“I would have killed her if you hadn’t removed her as quickly as you did. You were good, Jackie. You did good.” Alto nods. Before he drinks excessively, he’s always very reserved after a few drinks. His volatility goes down, plateaus for a little bit and then shoots through the roof. It’s nice he’s reserved now.

Neither of them have stopped holding hands since they got married. I suppose they like the feeling of their rings? They’ve kissed a million times, changed outfits twice - ‘to something more Dior’ - and have danced to a million songs. It’s like they were never not married, just like it was when I was a kid. They were so deeply in love I never thought they weren’t, logically they just should’ve been married. They are now, and I’m happy.

“You would’ve killed the girl?” Jack’s starting to slur his words a little, but it’s nothing extreme. It’s his wedding night, he deserves to get drunk-ish. Then again, if he does, will he remember it? Won’t he want to remember his own wedding night. He suddenly cackles. “I would’ve, too!”

“You don’t just do that. Who crashes a wedding for anything other than free food and booze?” Alto complains loudly. Everyone’s been very sympathetic since we left the chapel, offering affection and attention to the both of them. They deserve it, what happened at the ceremony was horrible.

“That insinuates you crashed a wedding for free food and booze.” I scratch my head, but Alto’s always been a little bit like that. I can’t blame him, and he was probably drunk at the time.

“Yeah, beauty. My dad’s. He didn’t want me there but he had hell of a lot of whiskey. It’s like telling flies to fuck off but then leaving them a bowl of fruit. The flies are gonna eat the fruit, y’know?” He speaks with a certain wiseness that reaches my soul. I love it when he gets like this; it’s normally accompanied by some philosophical meandering. “I mean, on tap champagne is good and all, but I think I’d be dead of alcohol poisoning already if it was whiskey.”

“I can order you a shot, honey.” Maybe no philosophical meandering between the two, okay. Okay, okay, I can live with that. But it sucks, nonetheless. 

“No, no, I want a nice big glass on the rocks so I don’t have to get up much.” Alto murmurs. Jack goes to stand up, but Alto pulls him down. “I just remembered that if we’re drunk we can’t go on the airplane. And I wanna go on the airplane, babe.”

“Oh, fuck, the airplane!” Jack slams his hand in to his face. He’s really starting to get quite drunk. “Um, um! Shit! I’m gonna be too drunk to get on!”

“Not if you believe in yourself.” Both of them erupt into peals of laughter. They have clearly drank much more than I have... but I’m probably going to have to be the designated driver. They’re _fucked_. “Seriously, though, honey, we need to stop drinking or they're not gonna let us on.”

“When’s the flight?” I purse my lips. I shouldn’t have let them get this drunk but what else was I supposed to do? At least they’re not high, which they can be. Sometimes I find them high, and it’s weird and strange and I really do wonder how they still look and act like normal members of society and still do so many fucking opiates.

“About 10pm, I think. And it’s, uh, 6 hours long? We’ll be there at 4am.”

“Aw, damn, I didn’t think about that.” Alto pouts and stretches out his neck and arms. His shoulders crack creepily, filling the air with the hearty clack. 

“Think about what?” Jack questions, and frankly, I have no clue what Alto is thinking about. At least, I might have an inkling, and I don’t want to think about that at all.

“It’s our wedding night.” Alto purses his lips. A slight smile creeps on to them and lights up his cheeks. Jack glares back in response, all the while I am thinking some kind of ’ _Nope! Absolutely not. Please stop’._

“Stop thinking about sex!” Jack yelps, louder than I want him to. The intrusive thoughts, all of which I want to permanently shun and have never come back, are pouring in through my eyes. 

“I’m gonna think about it.” I’m thankful Alto’s answer is nonchalant and honest, and not inherently suggestive in tone, but Jesus Christ, for the love of god I do not want to think about my parents fucking. I have to change the subject.

“Do you guys need me to take you to the airport?” I sigh and look at the both of them simultaneously. Thankfully, there are only two of them, rather than four. Maybe I'll be able to drive after all. I mean, I don't wanna get arrested. That ruins the honeymoon. Maybe I can drive so fast they don't notice me? That confirms it, actually. I'm drunk. I am too drunk to drive, and should probvably do the responsible thing and call my parents a cab.

“Yeah, probably. Hang on, what time is it?”

“About 5:30.”

“We need to go soon, honey. I have a spa treatment at the airport at like, 8pm. Deep tissue rub for an hour.”

“You two are unpredictable, you know that?”

“Oh, honey..." Jack whines and downs the final swig of his champagne. "I wish I could drink more of this. How much do you think I could sneak on to the flight?"

"I don't think it's a good idea, babe. Cause, we can get alcohol, on the plane."

"Oh, we can, can't we. But, I paid for the champagne and I wanna drink all of it!" 

"We're not paying." Alto leans back in his seat. "We're getting the wedding for free."

"What? Since when?"

"Since I said so, babe."

I am just watching them in disbelief. They're so difficult sometimes. More often than not, I find myself ignoring them because they... they kinda confuse me at times. I love them, they're my excessively gay opiate-taking, mostly drunk and statement piece wearing dads. (Yes, a few years ago Jack upheaved his entire personal wardrobe and replaced it with virtually only statement pieces; feather boas; chunky necklaces; velvet heels, and of course a hoard of psychedelic patterned dresses and sweaters he wouldn’t leave home without. He's so brightly coloured that he scares me. Sure, he wears some simple pieces now, but for that small period I was severely worried about his sense of fashion.)

"Oh?"

"And the flights. All free, all inclusive, all as a fuck you to the establishment."

“Hey, um, I’m gonna go raid the buffet for the last bits of food before we head off, alright?” Jack stands from his chair and smiles as he pushes it back under the table. The white tablecloth drapes over it with grace as he pushes it.

“Bye, honey.” Alto waves him away with a smile.

"You make a lot of money, dad." I raise an eyebrow. I have to push my champagne away or I'll crash them on the way to the airport, which I desperately don't want to do or else I will definitely ruin their wedding and possibly the rest of their lives and maybe even their relationship with me. I want to drink my champagne and not worry about their wellbeing, but here I am. “You can afford this wedding, why disrespect the people you got it from?”

“It’ll be fine, little J. If you wanna pay for your own wedding, go ahead. But I’ll gladly do it myself.”

“Should I marry Amelia?” My question comes out of the blue and obviously rouses him from whatever state he was in. I see his eyes widen as he thinks, I see the cogs turn and clank behind his expression, and his answer forms as even his black and grey hair moves.

“I don’t know, beauty. I don’t think I trust her very much.” His answer feels meaningful but lacklustre in explanations. He’ll give me one, I’m sure.

“Dad, you’ve been saying that for fifteen years, but I’m seriously starting to think about it.” I rest my head in my hands. I know he’s the best person to ask about this; Jack won’t give me a clear answer and he has a true distaste for Amelia when he’s drunk. “I love her, like, a lot.”

“Oh, beauty.” He rests his own head in his hand and leans down to face my level. “She’s the only person you’ve ever loved. Are you sure you can say what love is?” 

“What do you mean?”

“She’s done a lot of things, Jackie. Things you haven’t quite picked up on, and I’m not sure if you ever really will. But me and Jack think she’s, y’know, manipulative, and that she wants a lot from you, and we’re worried that when you come to terms with that or you can’t give her anything else she’s gonna turn on you quickly. She knows what she wants from a person and I’m not sure if she respects your boundaries enough.” Before I can roll my eyes at him he puts a calming hand on my shoulder. “I’m not saying she’s a bad person, beauty. But neither of us think she’s for you.” 

“You just won’t approve of her, will you?”

“Here’s the thing, beauty, I don’t have to. It’s your choice whether I like her or not. You have my blessing either way, but you still have my concern.” A server takes away the near-empty champagne flutes on the table; Alto thanks him with a nod. He’s starting to sober up a little now, I hope Jack is doing the same. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but she left for work earlier... I was notified of nobody clocking in. Do what you want with that information. I’m not trying to stir shit but you have to keep this in mind. You have to know who you’re marrying, Jackie. If she’s not at work, then where is she? Why is she lying to you, beauty?”

I get what he’s saying, I just don’t want to. He always presents me with his real opinion rather than dancing around it to save face and feelings - as a particular man I know does - and I appreciate it. I know why he wants to protect me. I’m his daughter. 

“What am I supposed to do, dad?”

_“Ask her, beauty.”_

================

Me and Amelia are laid in bed. The alarm clock reads 12:37 a.m and a cool breeze drifts through the open window, rattling the chiffon curtains, along with smidgeons of farm dust and dirt tickling my lungs as they slowly sneak through our open bedroom. The cracked adobe bricks outside leak inside, and even though it’s October I am still too hot to function. Southern California is brutal, and I’m starting to think that maybe moving to Michigan isn’t so bad after all. Maybe. Just a thought, just a little thought, a rambling. I’m going to finally have a use for long leather coats and the beautiful gloves my parents got for me.

They’re probably flying over my head right now. I pray to god they get there safe. I know the odds are low that something will happen to the flight but I care about them too much to dodge the thought. They really do seem to be all that’s on my mind today, which makes sense. It was their wedding.

Amelia is still awake and laying besides me. She’s not staring at the ceiling, she’s staring at her phone. Both hands cradle it. Mine is in my other hand; I’m waiting on a text from Jack. Their plane has Wi-Fi and I wanted to check in on them, check they were safe. It buzzes twice and sends a shock up my arm. I look at the bright screen; two texts sit there, both from Alto.

The first text is long, it reads; _were ok. ur dads still a little drunk and hes sipping champagne he managed to sneak in, hes also watching a musical i think. he says he loves u very much but honestly dont worry about us._

The second is just as poorly written, but he’s never been one to spell properly, especially in text. _we are going to sleep now beauty. thank u for checking in on us x_

I open the keyboard and begin keying in a response to him. **okay don’t die**

Before I can even send it, another one comes through, buzzes and says; _did u ask?_

 **im having trouble dad** I reply quickly, careful Amelia doesn’t see. I really don’t want her to bring it up. I came home and I saw she had gone shopping. She could have just said she wanted to go. I wouldn’t have minded. But she feels a strange need to lie to me, almost, and it’s... painful, nearly. I never brought it up because I didn’t want to make her angry.

_u can do it beauty. u deserve the truth and nothing less._

The statement really makes me _think_. I know it was wrong for Amelia to leave and lie about where she had gone, and even worse for her to be so blatant about it. She had no regard for anything I might have thought. I have gone to her family reunions and sampled everything gratuitously with a smile on my face, and all I had asked was that she came to my parents’ wedding. Her parents don’t like me either. They think I’m a simple valley girl who’s better suited to being a ranch hand than a suitor their daughter. But I went and I grinned and bore it and I was polite to them and I shook their hands. She never makes an effort to do those things.

Are you supposed to do that? Am I right to be enthusiastic or is she right to be the exact opposite of what I am? Maybe I should invite her to more, like our yearly family reunions - predominantly of the tyre slashing, trash burning, meat searing variety - but every time I’ve suggested it in the past I’ve been met with rolled eyes and general apprehension.

_ur dad needs to spoon so i have to go. i love you x_

**i love you too.** I send with a flick of my hand, and I lay my phone against my chest.

“Who was that?” Amelia turns to face me. Her hair smells like cocoa butter and it’s gorgeous and rich. Maybe she went for a hair treatment? I know she bought a dress and new shoes. 

“Alto. They have Wi-Fi on the plane, he was saying goodnight.”

“You worry about them too much.” She puts her phone next to her radio, clipping it in to the charger.

“We’ve always been like that, Amelia. We look out for each other. It’s been like that since I was ten.”

“You were ten over twenty five years ago, baby.” She curls in to my side and I take a deep breath of her soft, bouncy hair. It smells so _fucking_ good.

“Well, I like talking to them. They give me a lot of advice on how to do things.” I stretch out my stagnant legs. “I don’t always know how to do things. They do.”

“They’re not gonna be here forever.”

“They will be.” Before she can react, I decide to start speaking again. For Alto. I want to deserve the truth. “Am, why did you leave the reception today?”

“You didn’t need me.” Her voice is quick and succinct; it doesn’t play around. She planned her answer, clearly.

“That’s a bullshit answer, and you know it. It’s not about not needing you. They wanted you there. They’re trying, Am, even if you don’t see it.” My voice is growing uncomfortably loud and I want to stop talking. But I want the truth. I want to deserve the truth. “They will never fully trust you if you don’t let them in to your life. That’s what they’re like. More’s the question, why did you lie to me? You said you were going to work, and I know you never went because you never clocked in.”

“How do you know?”

“Alto told me. He’s always notified when someone clocks in.” I bite the insides of my cheeks. “And you know what? I thought it was fine that you lied. But it isn’t. That was my parents wedding. It meant so much to me and you wouldn’t even stay there because you felt going shopping was more important. Why?”

She doesn’t have an answer for me. Instead, she uncoils herself from my side, stands up, and leaves. I pluck my phone from my chest and open the keyboard.

**apparently i don’t get the truth.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha thats gay :’) I cried writing this


	4. Dream Sequence One: The Reaper

In a brief moment of incomprehension, I see Him. The Reaper. And the first thing I notice is that the Reaper does not look like I ever thought he would. No cape, and no suit, either. Everything he wears is a sickly off white that reflects and bends the light around it, manipulated to the sight of beautiful, rippling auras that reach out to me like a million arms. He is as incomprehensible and as confusing as the very situation I am in, and he is beautiful in every way I can perceive him to be. 

He reminds me of sweet morning sun, days passed in the summer, the scent of wheat on my mother’s fingertips. Which one it was doesn’t matter right now, all that matters is the scent, and the reminiscence of the situational memory that has spawned deep inside of me. I feel as if I am nowhere, and simultaneously everywhere I could possibly be at this very moment, everywhere I have ever been, and everywhere I will ever be. I am everything and nowhere all at once.

I am hanging off a building by my fingertips. And as He points down at me, as He stares and as His intense, incomprehensible gaze grows into a hazy fog that makes it hard to see and even harder to understand, I feel a wave growing behind Him and His godly aura. A final wave, one to end it all. But as I embrace the Reaper and His presence, His words crash down on me like a mountain, even harder than the growing wave behind His body. 

“It is not your time.” His deep voice emanates towards me, and my fingers let go. The wave crashes down and carries me down, though I have no clue where.


	5. Intervention

“All I’m saying is that she isn’t normal. She’s not got any sense of social consciousness and she seemed to want something to happen. What does that remind you of, beauty?” Alto shrugs. The light of the sun shines through his camera and on to my face. 

“No fucking clue, dad.” I reply and sigh. 

I’m laid in bed again. I need it, I’ve been running the site non stop for three days. I probably haven’t been home this long since then, and even now I’m sat here and talking about work with my father, who’s on his own fucking honeymoon. There seems to be no rest in this line of work; I can only hope that being an assistant manager is easier than this. I’ve heard there won’t be a real manager in the new site, rather a collective of assistants who work together to run the thing and will be under surveillance from other site managers on a rota of sorts. I suppose the Foundation wants to change things, but I’m going to miss being a researcher. Am I, though? I’m not sure. I feel sad at face value, but inside I don’t really feel much towards it. I think I’m happy to be moving up, away from a lot of danger, but I’ll miss my little juniors. I might train some on the side. I want to. But I think I’ll be far too busy to do anything of the sort.

Apparently, some of my juniors will be coming with me, which I think is wonderful. I’ll miss having them all around. We’re like family, a little dysfunctional family. Neil called me ‘mom’ the other day - I’m not sure if it was an accident or not - and I didn’t even yell at him. More of them have started calling me ‘researcher mom’ in informal emails, which I *guess* is cute.

“Beauty, there’s a little thingy called a reality bender I think it’s time for you to learn about.” He’s handed a cocktail from off screen and takes a long sip.

“I know what a reality bender is, dad. _You’re_ a reality bender, and we don’t do anything about you.”

“That’s because I’m smart about being one. Your intern isn’t smart, in the slightest. She’s too brash about what she wants and she isn’t a remotely good reality bender, either.” He gulps down more of his cocktail. It looks icy and full of food colouring and alcohol and Jesus Christ, I want one. “You said she came in with Konny? And he was blushing? That in itself is definitive proof. She’s seventeen and he doesn’t like anything under 30.” 

“She’s obviously smart enough to stop a bullet, dad.” 

“That much is true. You might have to satiate her until I’m back, and I can deal with her then.”

“How do I satiate her? Give her what she wants? That’s counterproductive. We can’t give her what she wants.”

“You can’t, but you can make her think that she does. You can make everyone act like she’s perfect and she’ll think they’re under her spell. Works every time, beauty.” He nods and stretches. “Get everyone together without her, send something to everyone but her and tell them to play along. I don’t think she’s smart enough to keep tabs on everything her supervisor is sending.” 

“What if she has people in on it?”

“She won’t, beauty.” He shakes his head and takes a swig of his cocktail. It’s melting under whatever sun he’s under. I need a vacation! “How’s Amelia? Everybody said they didn’t see her.”

“She apologised for leaving, so that’s a start. She won’t tell me why.” I look up at the ceiling. Currently, even though I’m at home, she’s out. I’ve barely seen her since she left three nights ago, but she apologised over a painfully awkward dinner last night.

“Do you think it could be...”

“Yui? Am’s not that weak willed.”

“It’s not about will, it’s about the fact Yui is capable of bending reality. You could take the strongest guy in the world and I could still make him punch himself in the dick.” He shrugs. I’m starting to wonder why I can’t see Jack around; where is he? “The only thing that can protect you from a reality bender is telekill, beauty. You still got that anklet you called horrible when you were a kid and then proceeded to never take off?”

I look down at my bare ankle and see the warm chain that rests around my ankle. I always thought it was silver when I was a kid; it never rusted when I took it in the shower and after the initial shock it was always warm and forgiving. I loved the thing, really, I got really attached to it for some reason. There was a summer in which I wasn’t allowed to see Alto, and by that time I’d adopted him as my dad and had bonded with him and let him hug me, all sorts. My biological mother refused to let me see him.

“You gave an eleven year old telekill?” I raise an eyebrow. I liked wearing it because it reminded me of him even if I hated the fact I was wearing a seashell around my ankle. It was a fuck you to my mother and a homage to my dad. “What did I need it for?”

“There was a time in which I became a little paranoid, me and Jack both did. Your mom was being unreasonable and we thought she was going to do something to you, but she never did because we gave you the anklet. I think it works like a circle of salt so you don’t have to wear a full suit of armor. It might be a little bent to ensure that.” 

“I never knew mom was a bender.”

“She was, yeah. She never did anything with it, not in the way I do, certainly not in the way that little intern of yours does.” He takes the final gulp of his cocktail. “That summer was a battle, beauty. Oh, your dad’s coming soon, so I gotta go. Really don’t wanna worry him.”

“Bye dad.” I murmur. The video feed shuts off and I close my laptop. I really start studying the little anklet that I’ve worn religiously for so long. It was like it had become a part of my skin.

The chain is a bluish platinum colour, and charms dance around the chain. They’re little starfish, fish and shells; a lot of their detail has been lost to time and they only vaguely resemble their true forms a quarter of a century later. I remember thinking ‘ _I don’t know why he’s given me shells. I don’t like the beach_.’ but I slowly learnt to live with it because every time my mother saw it she would stare in rage. He gave it to me in 1991, a few months before I turned twelve years old. It was almost stolen when I was in high school because the clasp nearly came loose, and I fastened it around my ankle. It has nearly never come off and I do not want to take it off now I know what it really is. 

I slide my laptop from my lap and on to the bed, and then I slide down from the soft divan. The chain lets out a soft jangle - I’ve become increasingly aware of the noises it’s making now it’s been mentioned - as I walk from the room and in to the lounge. Amelia is missing from her spot on the couch, but her dress hangs over the cushions like a ghost. I don’t know where she is, but I have an inkling she is at work and I will be required there too, very very soon. My phone buzzes, I pull it from my skirt pocket and look.

Expecting it to be no more than a summon to the site, I’m quite surprised to see ‘ _we tell the regional managers beauty. they can help_.’

‘ **how do we tell them** ’ I reply quickly. He doesn’t answer right away, but I’m sure he has an idea in mind. Maybe Jack’s come over? He must be done with his spa treatment or something.

I receive another text, but from neither of them this time. It’s from work. ‘Required.’ It reads. I had a two hour break so I could go home and nap and have some coffee. I have done neither of those things, since I am renowned for my ability to be productive and do what I am supposed to. I slide my phone back in to my pocket and I sigh.

Time for the return of researcher mom.

================

It’s afternoon break and Neil is on one again. He’s not as reckless as John is, but he’s annoying, but I love him. Neil is 24 and he’s got stumpy nails and short dark hair, so black it’s almost navy. He’s got deep bags underneath his eyes and he’s really quite messy. So messy, in fact, I have to make him his coffee. He’s far too shaky to use the coffee machine, apparently, and he’s asking for help.

As I push the warm mug over to him he looks up at me and thanks me with a nod. He takes a gulp before talking. “Thanks, Mom.” 

They have all taken to calling me mom. They will not stop calling me mom, and for some reason I am okay with it. I shouldn’t be, this isn’t professional in the very slightest, but they are my juniors and I am their mom, that is what they are to me. Except for Yui. I don’t want to ostracise her, and part of me feels sorry for her, but then I remember that she crashed my parents wedding and I’m kinda glad I put her in the corner. 

She also won’t call me mom because I seem to have become the antagonist of her own teen movie, which she is constantly and painstakingly trying to act out at virtually all times. She’s the weird girl and my juniors are the jocks and worst of all, I am the mean girl because I was mean to her when she stepped completely out of line. I think I was right to ask if she was deluded, but I don’t know if she was the right person to ask. 

“Alright, Neil. Just don’t break the coffee machine, for the love of god.” I nearly scare him by speaking and he nearly spills his coffee. “Sit down, kid, you’re gonna scald yourself like John.”

I have my own coffee at the round table and I sit down next to Neil and Lucy. Lily is at the opposite side of the table and John is on her right, whereas Glenn sits on her left. 

“Speaking of John, are you doing better now?” He’s only just come back, maybe two or so days ago.

“It came out of my nose and I still can’t smell properly.” His voice is stuffy and nasally. He had some really nasty injuries; burns across his face, he burnt most of his tongue and his nasal cavity, probably even some burns on his chest. This is why I don’t drink tea that is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, like my little fuckers do. “I’m gonna die, mom.”

“No, you’re not, calm down. I don’t think anything could kill you, even if it tried. You’re just too headstrong, kid.” I drink my non-scalding coffee with a somewhat smug, somewhat wise expression. I feel wise, I feel like I won’t fuck the kids up if I tell them things. “Where’s the intern, kids?”

“We sent her to go copy papers but she looked like, really pissed off about it. Really really pissed off.” Lily replies. She doesn’t drink coffee, she drinks hot cocoa instead, which I totally get. I’d drink cocoa if I didn’t have an eternal need for caffeine.

“That’s just Yui for you. You treat her like an intern and she throws a tantrum, but I’m sure if you give her any more responsibility the site will burn to the fucking ground with all of us in it.” I shake my head nonchalantly. It’s so weird to talk about her when she’s not in the room, but I want to openly shame her sometimes. It’s not that she just crashed my parents wedding, she’s entitled and melodramatic and also pretty self centred. 

Things Yui Has Done generally include; kissing Dr. Kondraki in front of me and the juniors; crying about her problems with a very uncomfortable Neil stuffed in the chemical store cupboard; wearing things we do not permit in the dress code; making Jack’s pie change colour or filling when he brings it down for us weekly (and yes, he is still having pies delivered despite the fact he isn’t even here) so she has an excuse not to eat it; trying to seduce or talk to already contained skips; and treating everyone around her like shit just because they don’t want to put up with her melodramatic bullshit. Me and the juniors like apple pie, Yui changed it to fucking cherry pie and then said she didn’t like it. I don’t know how I never noticed she changed it. 

“Mom, why do you hate her so much?” Glenn looks up from his coffee and stares at me, even though he knows I don’t like it. I’m guessing he feels bad for her because we all make fun of her, but he’s the one that makes fun of her most of all, because it’s breathtakingly easy to do.

I sigh. Should I tell them? Probably not, but we’re all on break. “On Saturday, she crashed my parents wedding. She showed up in a white lace gown and tried to marry my dad.”

They are all completely awed by two things; the fact that I responded to them, which I haven’t before, and what Yui did at the wedding, which personally still reminds me of a bad, bad fever dream. I get feverish just _thinking_ about it. It was three days ago sure, but I don’t want to remember it or even register it’s existence. 

“Which dad?” John looks up from his pity party and rubs just next to his poor burnt sniffer. 

“Alto.” I reply quickly. “What do you guys think of that huge ball of potential energy and light in the other room?”

“You’re changing the subject too quick, mom. You can’t just say that and then change-” Lily attempts to stop me but I put a hand in front for her mouth to stop her weefing.

“Yes I can, Lily. I can, I have, and I will continue to.”

“Can we go to your wedding?” Neil is probably the most immature out of all my juniors. He’s more helpless than all of them combined, but that boy is smart when it comes to anomalies. It’s like some primordial switch flicks on inside his head whenever he sees one and his eyes widen and he knows what to do all of a sudden.

“If I have one, I guess I might invite you. But it’s unprofessional, so you have to act like I actually knew you outside of work.” 

My phone buzzes and I pick it up to see it. ‘ _go on beauty_ ’ it reads. I know exactly what Alto means. He really means ‘talk to the regional managers’ but I’m scared, and he knows that. Which is probably why he sent me an affirming text. It buzzes a second time. ’ _if you don’t talk to them you’ll never get the help and we need the help.’_

I am supposed to video call with the regional managers but I do not feel smart enough or important enough to be able to do so. They won’t take me seriously. They’ll think I’m a little girl pretending to be her father and doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know who they are or what to say.

 ** _i_ can’t do it dad** I reply. **they won’t take me seriously**

 _they will beauty_.

**but what if we’re wrong**

_we aren’t_

**what if we are and she is just strange**

_if she acts like this she cannot be here._

There are so many more questions I want to ask him, so many more that I need to know the answer to. I could destroy this little girl’s career and dream if I don’t know the truth. I could leave her in a horrible depression. But if I don’t do this my family could be severely hurt by her in some kind of attack deemed an ‘accident.’ What if that happens? What if I don’t act out of empathy and my family ends up paying the price? Does my sanity in the meanwhile equate to their safety on an unknown time scale? Probably not. The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the one, surely? Maybe she’d spare me if I showed her mercy. Maybe it makes me a bad person whatever which way I do; if I report her I crush her but if I don’t then I endanger an entire site. There are lives in my hands again and I do not like it.

“Well, kids, I have to go talk to the regionals about something.” Apparently my desire to fill an awkward silence seals Yui’s fate. Goddamn, making decisions can be easy. Or hard. It depends on how much of the thought process you consider to be easy or how much you consider to be the thought process at all. Was I stalling? I might have been stalling because I knew I very desperately needed to make a decision about what to do with Yui and then my brain creates problems and forces me to deal with them because fucking hell, it hates me. 

I stand from my chair, take my coffee and grab my little laptop bag from the side before exiting our little commune area and beginning to walk down the corridor. And sure enough, I see Ms. Yui Sakura walking down the hall towards me. She is speeding up and I know for a fact she’s going to try and read my mind and talk me out of this. But I have *telekill*, so automatically, she cannot get to me. Which makes me want to laugh a little bit, to be frank. I think it’s funny Yui has the nerve to tail me like this after her scene at the wedding. I think she has some fucking nerve being _here_ , where I can see her.

“Mrs Bright?” She’s still fucking doing it.

“It’s ‘Doctor’ Bright, Yui. And I know I’m old and decrepit, but don’t be marrying me off.”

“I thought you were married to that pretty lady, Dr. Woods?” She bats her eyelashes and smiles sweetly. Her display is sickening. I wish she’d stop.

“I am in a relationship with Dr. Woods, I am not married to her.”

“You should, you’re cute together.” Oh, Jesus Christ. I wish she could just be professional in some sort of setting.

“I appreciate the complement, but that is not something you should comment on in a professional setting.” I sigh. She really doesn’t know how to fit in, does she? “You are going to have to learn how to behave properly if you want to get a placement here in the future, it will be me who writes your reference.”

“Oh, but I’m an excellent intern!”

“Are you, though? Your reports are virtually incomprehensible and you can’t make good coffee. It’ll come with age and experience I’m sure, but if you want to stay here then you will have to learn how to act.” 

“Please?”

“Please what, Yui?” I look back at her with a confused look in my eye. 

“Teach me?” 

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Maybe later. But right now I have some, y’know, super important Temporary Site Manager things to be doing.” I purse my lips and hold my laptop tightly to my chest, and I just hope she understands what I mean. She doesn’t, she’s mostly unreceptive, and she keeps getting... strangely close to me. I’m trying to edge in to the elevator and escape from her intense gaze.

I slap at the elevator button as she grows closer. She can tell I’m anxious, right? Is she socially awkward like me? I think I’m making it obvious that I no longer want to talk. Please, please tell me I’m doing this right.

“When and where can I meet you?!” She’s got this strange urgency in her voice that makes me wholly, entirely uncomfortable. I hate it. “I’m available all the time!”

“Um, I’ll come up with something, don’t worry. I might be available tomorrow, I’ll let you know.” I scramble in to the now open elevator. Thankfully, she doesn’t follow me and she shrugs, walking away. 

My doubts are only increasing in my chest. Maybe she’s autistic like me. Maybe she doesn’t know how to react. Maybe she has trauma and me overreacting to her is just making it worse. Maybe I’m the reality bender in the first place. 

_dont freak out beauty. i know u can do it_

**howd you know i was freaking out**

_ur in the elevator and freaking out like u always are. don’t let the lil shit get to u._

**she got to me**

_still there is no need for u to freak out. beauty u are strong and i kno u can do this_

**idk what to do im scared**

_ya try not doing that . just call them theyre not mean_

**the elevators at the top**

_don’t press any more buttons then. just get out_

I step from the elevator and in to Alto’s plush office. It’s mine for the time being but it’s still filled with his things, and his couch. It feels like an invasion of privacy if anything. I sit down on his chair and breathe in and out. Anxiety makes my chest hurt, but my inhaler’s downstairs. There’s a speaker in here. I’ll put on music afterwards and maybe go get my inhaler. It should be in here? If not, Alto probably has a spare up here, right? 

_honestly they will be happy about your concern. its about keeping the site safe. shows initiative_

I root around in the desk drawers but the closest thing I find is Jack’s inhale, which is far too strong and could possibly kill me. Plus it has his germs on it. Fuck it. I wipe it with my sleeve and take a sharp breath inwards. I drop the offending inhaler and wheeze and cough until my lungs stop screaming. Far too strong, but I think it’s taken the edge off.

_seriously, beauty, in and out five minutes of chat. they know you’re calling. i asked._

I pick it up and take another puff for safety measures, then slip it back where it had been before. I stare at the pictures. Many, of which I remember, seem very far away in my memories. There’s one on my first day of high school and one on my day of graduation. Both seem too far away to have ever been real. There was another photo in the desk drawer where the inhaler was. I open it to reveal a photo of me at the beach with Jack and Alto, probably when I was around fifteen. I’m covered in a towel and burnt to hell. It was a beach vacation that we took in the summer to congratulate me on another great year in high school. They were so proud of me, and I was marginally proud of myself, too. For once. I vaguely remember the day, actually. I had to sit in the shower for hours afterwards to remove the overpowering feeling of sand. I also remember not being able to sleep in the new beds.

We went to Oregon afterwards, which was nicer. Portland had some really nice hotels in the 90’s, I don’t think I could say the same thing now. The last one I stayed in was a little run down.

_you will be fine just breathe and speak we have this all hashed out._

**dad. im struggling.**

_yeah baby, i kno. just open the computer and start._

I do as he instructs and open the laptop with a strange sense of foreboding. The screen boots and springs to life, in to vibrant colour. There’s a message from the Regionals that crops up on my screen, saying – “Ready for call.” At least _they’re_ ready. How fortunate for them, that they might be ready. Brilliant, wonderful. Nevertheless I open their message and I press the call button that looms ominously at the top of my screen. The call rings for a few moments. I know what to say to these people, I’ve spoken to Alto, and I know it all. I might even have half a brain cell. I might just be able to articulate my point to them.

The cameras are off. It is just my voice speaking to the regional managers. It will be fine. They cannot see me. I will be fine. I’ve had thirty five years of speaking experience. I can tell someone about something wrong. My mind harks back to Yui. _She’s just a kid. She’s just a kid._ She crashed my parents’ wedding but she is just a _kid_.

“Good morning, Dr Bright.” The disassociated voice begins. They’re cold sounding yet articulate and professional. I love it, it helps ease me a little. “Dr. Alto Clef alerted me that you had some concerns about an intern?”

“Good morning.” I sigh and take a deep breath. Somehow, the inhaler has made its way on to the desk and in to my mouth. I take another inhalation. This is why I can’t be straight edge. “Yes, I have a few concerns.”

“Care to voice them?”

“I fear we have a potential reality bender on our hands. I have reason to believe Yui Sakura has been manipulating events and even her own internship to her liking.” I begin, but now I’ve said it I can’t remember what she’s done. The file? The file! “Firstly, her file is... unorthodox, and almost entirely improbable. She claims to be seventeen years old at Harvard University and she has landed herself an internship here. Her hair grows green, her freckles are the shapes of stars – it is not makeup, I have seen her cry – and while there are official recruitment documents associated with her name, there is no record of the man she was recruited by other than a faint memory that other agents can recall. He disappeared off the face of the planet. I cannot believe she is a spy as she is simply far too conspicuous.”

“I see.” The manager sighs harshly. I think I’ve spoken too much. I think I’m in trouble. Am I too emotionally charged? I tried to keep a neutral tone. “That’s quite a lot of damning information.”

“I spent a few days compiling.” I admit. Maybe I should have told them sooner. “I hope that’s not…an issue?”

“No. I appreciate it you took the time to develop your suite of evidence rather than making blind accusations.” He takes a very heavy pause and clicks around on whatever technology he’s using for the call. “Dr Bright, am I right to say you are the acting site manager at this point in time?”

“Yes, I am the acting site manager.”

“Then I would like your permission to dispatch a task force imminently. There is one near your area that I can send with a push of a button.”

His response draws me back in to my shoulders. This is serious and real and _what if I’m overreacting?_ Did I exaggerate? Did I lie? I don’t think I lied but I feel I did. I tried to be as truthful as possible. I don’t know what to do. _I don’t know what to do._

“Permission granted.” I tremble reluctantly. I know it’s the right choice. I know that’s what keeps the site safe, and I know that’s what it’s about. I have to keep the site safe. For me, for my juniors and for my parents. And maybe it’ll even be better on Yui this way. Maybe it’s better if she’s contained and doesn’t pose a threat to society. It’s better for all of us. 

“Thank you, Dr Bright.” The call ceases. I tremble and shut my laptop. I’ve selfishly doomed that little girl. I have destroyed her. I just have the strangest feeling that I’ve done wrong even though I am trying to protect everyone else here. And what if she is and I’ve made her anger hundreds of times worse? What if she was really harmless? She never posed a threat. She just wanted attention. She just wanted to be seen by someone, anyone, and live out her fantasies. 

I hate sympathy and empathy. I hate feeling bad for bad people with bad intentions for the fact that they are human. I wish I could be anything but stupendously empathic.

 **its done, dad** I click on the keyboard and hit send. **and I feel horrible about it**

_you did the right thing beauty._

**but what if I did the wrong thing? what if she was harmless?**

_if one gets in it allows the rest in. dont worry. if push comes to shove i will handle it my beauty._

**Yeah**.

I take a very deep breath in to my chest and draw my shoulders in. I push Jack’s inhaler away from me. I don’t want to make him pay the money for a new one simply because I couldn’t cope. I can’t find anything else I can take in here, at least, I don’t know where it is. There’s probably something down in my office that could help me cope. I leave the laptop on the desk and I take the stairs downstairs to ease my racing mind. I don’t see Yui as I travel down the grey corridors and my office sits untouched and as messy as it should be. I open and root through my drawers, find a pack of cigarettes and grasp the box, attached to a lighter.

I find smoking truly detestable. I really, really do. And I repeat that schtick to myself over and over again as I authorise my own exit of the building and light my first cigarette and stuff it in to my mouth with shaking hands and without a second thought. 


	6. (There Will Be No) Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie goes on a hasty ring shopping trip so she can propose to Amelia at a local shrimp buffet. Unfortunately, past events come back to haunt her.

The Task Force came and removed Miss Yui Sakura without a hitch, and not one person has shamed me for the decision. When I explain, they all understand, and virtually... instantly. ‘Reality bender’ is all it takes. But for once, my conscience doesn’t rely on the opinions and complaints of the many. It is it’s own beast that crawls around inside my chest and has been causing me to abuse my inhaler for the past week. That, and cigarettes. I had the doctors up me to a higher dosage. _What’s worse is I hate taking the inhaler. It activates my gag reflex every time._

Every time I grasp for that inhaler, I tell myself I hate substance abusers. And every time I grasp it, I still inhale it. At least it’s not meth, at least I don’t do meth. I’m glad I don’t do meth. I think Jack would kill me if I did meth, or at least put me in rehab. And if it’s anything like I’ve heard, I don’t want to go to rehab. I really don’t want to go to rehab. I wish I was better at self-control. I could get hooked on anything that had the slightest effects on me and that makes me feel weak. I’ve done it before. I still have a small collection of cough syrup bottles from a brief addiction in 2011 before Jack took it upon himself to remove me from the apartment entirely and surveillance me to keep me safe. He saw me shaking when I was withdrawing from codeine in work. I also got addicted to Ritalin when I was 16 and they were trying to get me to calm the fuck down in class.  
  
Sure, the inhaler isn’t as dangerous as codeine or Ritalin but it’s three times the price and I’m not going through withdrawal when I don’t use it.  
  
I have a highly addictive personality. I don’t just have a problem abusing substances, it’s with people who I just can’t seem to rid myself of. People I must think about even though they’re no good for me or my mental health.  
  
I zoom out from existentialism to the scene of silver engagement bands. Today is Tuesday – my rather unconventional day off – and Amelia thinks I am out of state at a meeting somewhere in Nevada. She’s at work, I received the notification. I took ring measurements last night, when she was asleep. But she seems to be very in love with me right now and I am hoping to god she doesn’t say no. I had a ring style in mind, a simple v-shaped band set with crystals. I saw it last night. She saw it out the corner of her eye and she smiled. That must mean _something_ , surely. Maybe it means she wants the ring. But we’ve been dating 15 years and we’re like a married couple. It’s just to consolidate it.  
  
“Can I help you with anything?” A shop clerk approaches me from behind and smiles. She’s quite young, younger than me, maybe 25. Also, much shorter than me. I’m quite a tall woman, but she’s oppositely tiny.  
  
“Um, yes, actually. Can you show me to the v-shaped rings?” I ask and raise an eyebrow. She nods with a strange kind of respect and shows me over to a smaller collection of rings a little further down my right. “Thanks, I didn’t see them there.”  
  
“Who are you shopping for?”  
  
“My girlfriend, I’m going to propose to her.”  
  
“Oh, congratulations.” I notice she’s very rushed in the way she speaks, like she’s rushing to get somewhere else. She can do that if she wants, I have no qualms picking a ring alone. “Our engagement ring collection is over there.”  
  
“I was thinking something a little more understated. She’s not a fan of large stones.” I peruse the small selection of rings. It doesn’t leave me with much choice, but the colourings run through my mind. Amelia’s a fan of gold, but will she want the pink gold or the yellow gold? She’s hard to shop for.  
  
“I see.” She nods slowly. “We do have some smaller stones.”  
  
“It’s a practicality thing, she’s a doctor.” I really do like the look of the gold one, it would be stunning against her skin. “There are so many shades of gold I don’t know which one to choose.”  
  
“Can I get an idea of her colourings?”  
  
I pull my phone from my coat pocket and swipe it open to reveal a picture of me and Amelia; my home screen background, to be exact. I took it a few weeks before my 35th birthday, last year. It’s so strange to think I’ve kept the same home screen for a year, but then, I’ve gotten used to it, I’ve never thought to change it. Amelia took me to a restaurant that night. I’ll take her to the same one tonight, I can afford it. I’m getting quite a weekly bonus for my extra site manager work and the hellish overtime I’ve been doing for the past two weeks.  
  
The clerk stares at the photo and my chosen ring for a few moments and flits her eyes between them before looking up. I slip my phone into my suede pocket and she clears her throat as she thinks. It reminds me to take a long, hefty wheeze of my inhaler, which I then proceed to do quietly. Have I become the kind of person that can’t even do this in their own home? I think my chest hurts and there’s a tickle in my lungs, so I think I’m justified. Even if I’ve only just noticed it.  
  
“I would say the yellow gold.” She looks up again and nods, and I stare at the ring thinking if Amelia could really look at it for the rest of her life. I stare at it wondering if I could look at it for the rest of my life, which I think I could. And if it goes wrong, I can just give it to her as jewellery. I have ideas. I didn’t come into the jewellery store without thinking about the possibilities. If she seems mad for any reason, I can hold it off. I buy the ring; I hold the power.  
  
“Yellow gold it is, then.” I agree and nod at the small pointed band. It’s nearly two thousand dollars’ worth of ring, just perched on a tiny white cushion. It looks dainty and helpless, and the glass that protects it is thin and equally fragile looking. The ring better be hardy. The clerk nods and walks to her supervisor. I root around for the leather wallet in my pocket and find it perched next to my phone, hefty with gift cards and coupons I just won’t leave at home.  
  
I don’t have any for this store. I wish I did. I can afford the ring, it’s just that I think I’d rather spend my money on records I do not need. Then again, if I want to buy records, I can just waltz my way on over to the music store which is across the crossing and down the sidewalk a little and blow my money on whatever records I want to. Joni Mitchell, perhaps. I’ll have a look.  
  
“Excuse me?” I’m tapped on the back unexpectedly and I jerk around to see an uptight looking man in a suit. He spends a moment looking at my beret; the people here seem to really… appreciate my beret. Is it that unusual to wear a beret? Do I look like a thief? I hope I don’t. I haven’t got the capacity to steal anything and I really, really do not want to get arrested while looking for rings. “Could you show the ring you’d like to buy?”  
  
“Certainly.” I cough and point at my chosen ring. I feel like an idiot. What if Am wants one of the… actual engagement rings! It would eat through her gloves! But this isn’t… this isn’t a normal engagement ring. It’s a fancy one, a refined one made to last years and to worn around the necks of future generations. And, its not too nasty? It’s a nice, refined ring, it’ll sit nicely on her finger… what problem can she really have with it?  
  
“And the ring sizing? We offer resizing free of charge for the perfect fit.”  
  
“I checked last night; I believe the size is a four.” I raise an eyebrow trying to remember. Am has small, skinny fingers. I’m sure it’ll fit her fine.  
  
“I’ll be right back.” He smiles. He seems to be really kind. But that’s because I’m about to spend two thousand dollars on a ring.

==========

 _I looked a coyote right in the face, on the way to Baljennie, near my old hometown._ Holding Am’s waist, I whirl her around the kitchen and up against the counter. She leans down and kisses me on the nose. I don’t want to jinx it, but I really do think this proposal is going to work. She seems very in love tonight, like she’s completely forgotten how I broke down in bed a few weeks ago. It feels like a lifetime and I really miss my parents, but just wait until I tell them I’m getting married.  
  
Yes, I caved in and I bought a Joni Mitchell record. I also bought a two-thousand-dollar ring and booked a reservation at a restaurant where bottles of wine in crystal decanters cost more than my cough syrup addiction. At least they candlelight things and give you free dessert if you propose to someone. But if she says no then I’m going home, and not even chocolate pudding could stop me from doing that. My point is that tonight is expensive, very expensive, and I’m anxious as hell about it. I don’t want to be one of those people that returns the ring, I don’t want them to feel bad for me. And if she says no then I will wear the ring proudly, because it’s a nice ring.  
  
“So, baby, I might have booked us a reservation at the fancy shrimp restaurant, for tonight…” I smile and edge up to her a little further, tilting my head upwards to kiss her again. 

“The one with the sauce fountain?” She exhales from her nose and I nod in reply. She seems happy about it, but a strange streak of confusion crawls across her face. “What’s the occasion?”

“Oh, nothing, I just fancied shrimp and nice wine and I don’t want to cook it.” 

“What’s going on, Jackie?” She smiles and plays with the tiny hairs beneath my scarlet mop. “You’re plotting, aren’t you?”

“You’re gonna have to wait and see.” I look up. This seems to be a positive sign, she seems to be happy. I think she has a small inkling of what I’m doing, which is the way I like it, because she seems to be happy about it. 

“I have something to tell you.” She looks down. “You know how they’re sending you to Michigan? They’re sending me to Hong Kong.”

“ _Shit_.” I mumble and my brows furrow a little. “That’s a long way away, honey.”

“I know, I don’t want to go. I like being with you. But it’s a temporary placement, twelve to eighteen months, and then I’m joining you in Michigan.” She laments. It’s a little bit of a setback but even more of a reason to get married. To make things perfect. To make every day a reminder of love. 

“Man, that sucks.” I try and shake off the feeling of sadness in my chest. I can’t use the inhaler, it’s too far away and Am doesn’t like the smell of it, but I grasp for its form anyway as a comforter. “Saying that, we’ve been together for fifteen years and we probably will be for many more, what’s a year and a half?”

“I could drink to that, honey.” She smiles. I’m glad that she understands. I think it’s a goody sign, a really good sign, that she thinks we’ll be together ‘many more years.’ Or maybe she doesn’t really think that, and she’s joking? I hope not. I really have to hope it’s the latter, that she wants us to be together forever. I want us to be together forever.

“I’m gonna miss you, though.” I shake my head and back away a little, stretching my arms as I go. I lean against the counter and I take a strong puff from the inhaler. My ribs nearly double in size as I take in the deep breath with urgency. 

“You’ve been using that thing a lot, do you wanna go see a doctor?” She slips down from the counter and looms just over my bent body.

“No, babe. I’m gonna be fine, it’s just the dust, ‘cause it’s so windy this time of year.” 

“Your prescription’s gone up, I saw the papers.” She alarms me but I don’t think she knows what I’ve been going through with the inhaler, she seems very genuinely concerned and doesn’t have a ‘you’re going to rehab’ tone like she did in 2011 when her and Jack confronted me.

“Yeah, I’m having real trouble breathing.” I take in another hastened puff of my inhaler. It’s so potent it almost makes my eyes water.

“You never normally do, I think you should get it checked out.”

“You know they can’t take DNA samples from me, Am. It’s a wonder we didn’t get found out when they took my fuckin’ appendix out.” I drop the inhaler on the counter in an attempt to prove to her it means almost nothing to me, which is entirely untrue. 

“How did the hair not get noticed? Three year old, scarlet hair?”

“Mom used to dye it until I turned about five, I wouldn’t take it after that. I kept biting her but when I got older I started to draw blood.” 

“Really? Someone managed to hold you down that long?” She looks genuinely surprised at the fact. She managed to hold me away from the cough syrup.

“That’s what they tell me happened, but y’know what, I don’t actually remember.” I raise an eyebrow. I think that’s the wrong reaction, but she knows what I’m getting at so it doesn’t matter. “I barely remember getting the appendix out except for the fact both of my dads were there, which is honestly weird because Alto was my godfather and didn’t really have any business being at the hospital.”

“It’s probably because your dad wanted someone to hold him while he waited for you.”

“Yeah, but according to the tale he was drunk and left halfway through the surgery to get more liquor. I was passed out on an operating table, I have no clue what he did.” I shake my head and shrug. She’s really, really close to me and I’m not sure if I want her to be this close, at all. “My biological mom held him. When she still loved him. Y’know, I’ve always thought that she was fine with the fact my parents were in love and it was just that she didn’t trust him because he kept it all a secret.” 

“You’re probably right. I mean, the fact he couldn’t trust the mother of his children with his secret was probably alarming to her.”

“But he told me.” I nod slowly and rest my chin against my hand. 

“... You ever considered that was because they wanted to pretend they had children of their own? That they were a family?”

“They weren’t pretending, that’s just what we were. Alto was always like another father even if I didn’t like having him around. And by the time I was ten, he just was.” I take another deep breath of the inhaler and she stares blankly at me as I do. 

“You better not be getting addicted to that thing.” She leans close down to my level, but her voice is more concerned than threatening towards me. I feel the ‘you’re going to rehab’ in her voice and it makes my cheeks feel like they’re about to explode. I wish she wasn’t so good at hitting nails on heads like that. “Butane gas can kill you instantly if you take it wrong.”

“I’ve never been one for gases, you know that. I’m more in to actual medication.”

“You can’t get addicted to ventolin, Jackie. It has no addictive properties, you are only capable of developing a dependency on its rescue abilities.” She states clearly. I hate the fact she’s on to me. “If you can promise me it’s because of the dust and not because you’ve developed some sort of dependency I will get off your ass right now.”

“It’s not just the dust, it is physically relaxing. It helps my chest when I get anxious.” I admit. She doesn’t need to know the whole extent of what’s really going on here. “They won’t medicate me because the Ritalin pissed on my track record.”

“Why are you anxious right now?” She raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not. It’s the dust.” I lie.

==========

“So, more shrimp?” I hold up my plate and I raise an eyebrow at Amelia. She laughs, the wonderful bell of her voice ringing in the air. Her smile lightens up her face like the sun through the clouds and she raises her empty plate - which had once been covered in shrimp covered cocktail sticks and sauce - in agreement. I didn’t think this restaurant would go down so well. “More shrimp!” 

We stand in unison and I get another glimpse of her in her gorgeous attire. She’s wearing a form hugging burgundy dress that stops just above her knees. This entire restaurant is actually a smorgasbord of unintelligible theming and it works brilliantly; no shirt, no tie, no service, decanters that cost more than the ring in my clutch bag, and yet it is an all you can eat shrimp restaurant with sauce fountains. 

She walks in the general direction of the spicier shrimp while I stick with the garlic shrimp, which in my opinion has much more flavour and doesn’t burn my mouth to pieces. I have to justify myself in this shrimp restaurant. I like justifying myself, I don’t like feeling anything more than up to par with everyone else. I like the garlic shrimp more than the spicy shrimp and that’s okay. My taste in shrimp is okay. My taste in _everything_ is theoretically okay, or at least, it should be. 

I take - and skewer - the garlic shrimp. I don’t take too many because I don’t want to ruin my breath, maybe three or four. My brain feels fragmented and I don’t know why. This isn’t a normal anxious mood. There is something off here and I can’t place what it is. Did I forget the ring? I’ve seen the box in my bag since I got here. I turn away from the shrimp and huff the Ventolin, which I now have attached to my wrist. I only wanted to use it at the very last second, but in the second I did I’m sure I missed something pass me by. Am hasn’t given me a second look using it since we got here... maybe she knows what I’m going to do?

I pass on the sauce fountain and end up back at the table where I’m very sure I see something I don’t like once more, but it’s gone the minute I try and look towards it, like a hallucination. Maybe I’ve taken the Ventolin wrong and I’m high on gases now? _Fuck. Fuck!_ I can’t be high? I don’t think I am? I don’t _want_ to be high. I want to go home now. I don’t like this place, it’s too hot and apparently I’m high! It should have faded by now. _Why hasn’t it faded?_

“You okay, Jackie?” Am raises an eyebrow, having sat back down at the table with a plate full of shrimp. “It’s all you can eat, baby.”

She lends me a comforting look although I’m unsure if I can take it from her. Nothing feels real and my skin feels prickly and my chest is even worse, tight, feeling as if it’s going to explode against my dress without warning. I take the Ventolin again and she looks away so it doesn’t bother her. I’m glad we’re on the same page. I feel better and I get on with my shrimp as if nothing ever happened.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I nonchalantly smile as if she didn’t just seen me scratching at my chest as if there was a demon inside. “You, uh, enjoying the shrimp?”

“Yeah, it’s nice.” She smiles and stretches, and takes a bite of her covered skewer. “God, this place is hot. You’d think they’d turn on the AC!”

“I swear it was colder the last time we came.” I shake my head and use a fork to remove the shrimp. “Maybe we’ve just eaten too much shrimp and they can’t afford it anymore?” My joke makes her laugh. I think I’ve restored the atmosphere, she looks happy again.

“I love you, Jackie.” She rests her chin in her hand and her eyes wrinkle at the sides. She seems genuinely in love with me tonight and I reach in to my bag for the ring box, holding it just under the tablecloth in both my hands.

“I love you too, Am.” Is now the right time to pull out the ring and propose? If I don’t do it now, I’m probably never going to, and I’ll just sit here with this ring box in my hands forever. So I slide it on to the table, and she notices it and her eyes widen. Anxiety takes me over but I open it and I hold it out. “Amelia, will you marry me?”

She gasps and smiles and she looks at the ring with love in her eyes. She looks like she’s going to say yes but she won’t say anything, I think she’s too shocked. I don’t know what I’m going to do if she refuses it and I desperately want her to take it. Please. Please take it. 

“Oh, baby.” She blushes and smiles. It’s deathly silent in the room; everyone’s noticed and she’s sopping up the attention like a sponge, smiling, batting her eyelashes and playing with her hair. I, on the other hand, am not. Why isn’t she moving, or talking? If she wants to say no she can refuse. I don’t mind. Well, I do. But I don’t. I won’t hurt her if she refuses. But I’ll be upset. 

“Well?” I laugh anxiously and look around the silent, hot room hastily. _Please accept. Please accept._ She knows I hate distended silences. 

Then it comes. What I can only describe as a wave of anarchy. I’ve felt it before at certain points; being close to ‘odd’ events, like when a skip releases an unwarranted amount of energy, or when Alto decides the vending machine will drop two sodas. It takes over my body and slides out through my foot, through the anklet, which suddenly feels cold and almost electric, jangling in its on volition and shocking me every time it hits my leg. A similar thing hits Amelia, I see her vibrate with intrusive energies that don’t belong anywhere near her or the current situation. I know what’s happening. It’s the telltale of a reality bender.

“No.” She pushes the ring away and I pull it back inwards. It’s not my fault, and I know it’s not, but I can’t help but cry. Nobody I know would intercept me like this. What if it’s Alto? He doesn’t even know I’m doing this. But he’s got reason to. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, Jackie, you’re a country bumpkin, a daddy’s girl, you have no self preservation, you’re overly attached and you have a fucking addiction problem! You have no regard for anybody’s feelings - why the fuck would I marry you?”

I don’t speak back to her because it isn’t her talking. It isn’t Amelia in there, it’s some reality bender that for some unknown reason, doesn’t want me to be happy. It’s all a blur as she ups and leaves with her purse, shrimp still on the plate. 

As I’m spacing out I see a flash of green and red pass the shrimp receptacle. I know who it is.


	7. Dream Sequence Two: The Red Snapper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie speaks with a fish she met in her childhood.

There is a man standing at the edge of the tracks with a concerned look on his face. He’s mere meters away from me, and he wears a long dark cape. His face is covered in shadow, and I am stood on the shore waiting for him to walk towards me. When I look down, thick, heavy sludge surrounds my shins, making it hard for me to move forwards, or to move at all. The man begins to scale the hill between me and the track, and I see that his head is that of a red snapper.

He walks over the track and towards me. His cape is ornate, covered in golden, swirling symbols. Water erupts from beneath the cape, allowing him to walk through the sludge and the waste. Something hits my leg, and as it does, Red Snapper lifts me in the air and on to a cloud made of water, as we walk through the beach, now an ocean of black sludge.

“Hello, Jackie.” He looks at me, mouth flopping. Inside his mouth is a vortex of golden and blue swirls. “I haven’t seen you in a very long time.”

“Since when have we known each other, Sir?” I raise an eyebrow. My hair is suddenly wet, dripping down my face. The feeling is... despicable.

“Since never.” He replies, nonchalantly, and for some reason, I don’t find this concerning, in the slightest. “And when you were very small.”

“Hang on, are you... the snapper I caught when I was seven?” I ask though it’s barely a question. Red Snapper nods in response. It’s hard to tell his emotions when he hasn’t got a human face. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t mean it. It’s okay.” He nods. A gash appears on his lip from when I caught him. Didn’t I throw him back? I refused to eat all the fish I caught, I always threw them back. Even when I was an angry teenager. “You let me go.”

“Well, I’m glad you forgive me, but why are you here?”

“You were strong-willed back then. Why aren’t you anymore?” He tilts his head and disappears, cape falling into the sludge and turning it all into water as he disappears completely. What the fuck?


	8. Kate Bush Did Not Prepare Me For This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie's current state has deteriorated because of the breakup. It takes some wise words and questionable choices in order to

I have been lying on the couch for what feels like weeks, but in reality, it’s very likely that I have only been waiting here for a few days. I lost track of time the last time it was Tuesday, and I have no clue how long ago Tuesday might have been. It could be Monday, or it could be Wednesday. I don’t think it’s Tuesday today. I haven’t gone to work - I remoted in, thank you very much - I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten much either. I have laid on my parents’ couch, listened to the very extent of what my brain will allow me to listen to, and cried. I don’t have any plans to stop, either.  
  
My dads do not know I am here, and they don’t even know Amelia broke up with me. Mom is at TractorCon again but I haven’t told her either. I didn’t know I was capable of crying for so long, and I haven’t used the inhaler since the breakup, whenever it was. It hurts. _It really, really hurts._ I’ve never felt these feelings before, not even when my mom and dad broke up the first time or the twins left, which were both pretty bad times for me. I guess it’s just, to be put down like that, and to be told those things after you’ve been dating a person for fifteen years is... horrible. I can barely put it into words, but it fills my head with questions I don’t have any answers to.  
  
How long did you think that? Were you going to break up with me? Did you ever really love me? Did you stay with me out of sympathy? Were Jack and Alto right about things I never noticed? Are you in love with someone else now? Have you moved on from me already? Do your parents know? Did your parents tell you to do this? Moreover, why have I had to leave MY house and why the FUCK are you staying in it if you hate the country that much, you fucking backstabber? Just go back to your parents. Or if you’re going to Hong Kong, why don’t you just go there early?  
  
The reality bender changed the entire relationship and I feel that now. She didn’t just go for that part of our relationship. She changed Amelia’s memories of me, my memories of her. Suddenly I can remember her being a lot more violent and snappy when I know she never was, and I don’t know how it’s affected me. I think she changed time. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just showed me things I swept under the rug. Maybe she showed me things I’d never seen. I mean, even when the memories hadn’t been changed, Jack and Alto always believed there was something wrong with Amelia, right? I can’t tell. Reality has changed and anything that isn’t a video, I cannot prove _ever_ happened. I can’t prove anything in our relationship ever happened.  
  
All I can prove, all that’s on video, was that she was my lab partner during my internship and that I was the one that asked her out. I also know I stood outside her lodgings with a stereo and played _Wuthering Heights_ as loud as it could go, and that my brother Jules took me there because he could drive. But things I never recorded, I will never know.  
  
 _Backstabber, hope grabber, greedy little fit haver!_ My speaker system blares. I know it’s not a breakup song, but it feels like one and covers some of the anger I feel at the situation. _God, I feel for you, fool!_  
  
The door unlocks and in comes the scent of the outside, the scent of wheat and fruit permeating the air. The sounds of two kisses dance through to me, slicing through the angry music. The volume dims almost instantly as my parents walk in, suitcases in tow. From where I’m laid, Jack looks concerned and Alto looks confused. Maybe it’s the other way around?  
  
“Oh, dear.” Jack sighs and flicks the stereo off.  
  
“Turn it back on,” I demand, though my voice only demands so much. My tone isn’t right and my intonation is off and I can see that in Alto’s expression. “I want the ‘Dolls.”  
  
“I have a hunch you’ve had enough ‘Dolls for today, darlin.’” Jack refuses and clears away the magazines on the desk. There could be a porno in there, I’m not sure. Not really, a porno, but a titty mag? Is that the word for it? “Why aren’t you at home?”  
  
“I proposed to Am and she put me down and now she’s living in my house.” My voice responds dryly, though I’m not really paying any attention to anything I’m saying. “I spent like, two thousand dollars on a ring and she called me a country bumpkin. What the fuck? She said I don’t care about people’s feelings, but if I don’t, then what am I putting above my _own_ feelings?”  
  
“Man, beauty, that’s a dick move,” Alto mutters, sliding his suitcase under the table.  
  
“I’ve been here ever since.”  
  
“Listening to Dresden Dolls and binging?” Jack stares the wrappers down, trying to gather them into one place.  
  
“Essentially,” I reply. Jack brushes my legs away and sits next to me, lifting me up from my seemingly eternal resting place on the couch. He pets my hair and sighs deeply. Alto leaves at a nod from Jack. Are they telepathic now?  
  
“This is a horrible situation, my love.” He holds my hand in his and gives me a sympathetic look. It’s deep in his eyes and I can’t look at them because his gaze is fixed. “Your first-ever breakup. Wow, I was not-“ He stammers for a moment before composing himself. “I never thought I’d have to do this.”  
  
“You thought we were going to be together forever?” I furiously pull a tear away from my eyes, dragging my fists across my cheeks harshly. The skin catches and with a great deal of friction I pull them away, reddening the normally perfect skin. It feels soiled and greasy. I didn’t realise, I hadn’t touched it in so long. I didn’t realise my morning rituals would be so easy to break, but then again I did not perceive time in my strange, brooding state.  
  
“Yeah, baby. Even if I never liked her.” He rubs my upper arm and hands me a kerchief from his pocket. How many does he have? I get he’s gay, but this is... overkill. “I always thought you’d love a gal that went a little slower, but you were always happy together and that’s all that ever mattered to me. But to know she was so awful to you when she rejected you... I hate to say it, but I’m glad she’s gone. I’m sorry, my love, does that make me awful?”  
  
“It wasn’t her, daddy. It was the reality bender. I saw her.”  
  
“Honey, you can’t blame the shortcomings of others on reality benders.” He, strangely, doesn’t seem surprised at my response. It’s like he almost knows what I’m going to say, anticipates it. “I know it hurts, darlin’, I’ve been there myself more than I can count.”  
  
“No, it was Yui, I fuckin’ saw her!” I exclaim. He barely reacts, only sighs and holds me closer. “I saw her there and she’s changed my memories.”  
  
“Darlin,’ I don’t think she has. She’s in a Site in the Ozarks, nowhere near California. You could’ve checked that yourself.”  
  
“I tried getting into the security feeds but instead I got a warning from the Regionals, daddy. I was _involved_ in the case and that means I have access.”  
  
“That’s strange.” He raises an eyebrow and ruffles my hair. “Look, honey... I think you should go get some sleep. I love you very much and I know you’re concerned but I think we should talk about this when you’ve got a clear head.”   
  
“Daddy, I know what I saw.”  
  
“We’ll talk about it when you feel better.” He ushers me up and points me up the stairs. There’s no use arguing with him.  
  
=========  
  
I wake up in the bedroom I had for most of my life before meeting Amelia. I moved into the attic when I was five and it hasn’t changed since I left it at the age of twenty-five. When I was a little girl I slept downstairs, mere steps away from Jack’s room. He came to check on me religiously every night, adjust the nightlights, takes away any milk cups I might have had lying around. Maybe even soothe me if I was restless. When I was five I moved into the attic because my mother needed it for work. What work it was, I still don’t know. I was still relatively close to Jack, and at first, I slept downstairs with him, or he would sleep nearby so I could get used to the attic.  
  
The attic has traditionally been full of spiders. They love it in here. The warmth, the dust, the sun through the window. They flourish in my little corner of the house. I used to find them when I was six and run down the attic stairs screaming and Jack would have to catch me in my rampage and calm me down. I didn’t like sharing my room with the spiders. They were angry and restless and often relentless, stopping at nothing to bite or chastise me for being in their space. Jack used to attack the room when I calmed down, armed to the teeth with spider killer, but it never worked and just made my chest worse. On those days, I just got to sleep in his room.  
  
Seeing as I stopped sleeping here nearly ten years ago, it’s inundated with old technology; old VCR players, a record player, things I was in the midsts of taking apart and never put back together. I lay in Jack’s old comforters, some even older than I am. I had them because they smelt just like he did, and they still do. He smells different now but these ones are still comforting. Even one of my oldest blankets, a foundation-sanctioned lab coat I acquired at the tender age of three months old (which is far more patch than original fabric) still smells like he does. He used to hold it close every now and then to shut me up in the nights. I reckon he still would if I needed it.  
  
There’s a knock on the door before Jack enters carrying a tray of sweet tea and what I assume to be cookies, though I can’t tell in the dim light. He slips the tray on the floor and sits at the edge of my bed, hand on mine and gripping tightly.  
  
“How are you feeling?” He asks, his head tilted. I feel like I’m a sad teenager that won’t get out of bed. “Your dad got Amelia out of the house, it’s yours again.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I croak. Maybe I’m not too fine. But I think I feel better than I did when Amelia was breaking up with me and living in my house. I shuffle upwards and sit up in bed, pulling my hand away from his. “It’s weird sleeping without someone by your side.”  
  
“I know, I know. It’s gonna be even worse when you go back.” He sighs. “But that’s it. She’s out of your life and you can focus on the good things, the light at the end of the tunnel. Y’know, your dad and I think you should stay single for a while, really, experience things. On your own, y’know? I know you don’t want to, but we think it’s for the best.”  
  
“When are you gonna listen to me? It wasn’t _her_ that broke up with me, daddy.”  
  
“I checked, darlin, and Yui’s in a containment unit beneath the Ozark mountains. She has been since she was contained. She wasn’t at the restaurant and she had no way of knowing you were proposing to Amelia.” Jack shakes his head and holds up the tray he’s brought up to the attic. “Tea?”  
  
I gingerly take a cup and as he slips it back on to the floor beside him he joins me in the endeavour, holding it gracefully with two hands and fingers crossed over precariously. There’s a very certain way that he likes to drink tea, and he always has. I’ve seen pictures of him do it when he wasn’t even in this body.  
  
The way we’re both acting makes it seem as if I’m sick, a hot pack on my head and a thermometer in my mouth. His understanding smile paints his face with softness and calmness that radiates through the room. But I’m not sick. I’m very far from it. I’m just in a strange place of emotional turmoil and unfamiliarity, and maybe that does make me sick, but not in the bag-on-the-forehead kind of way. More of a get-some-therapy way. I could talk to the psychologist about this, but he tends to get pissed whenever I bring up something that doesn’t have to do with work.  
  
Fuck it. I’ll chat his ear off at the next opportunity I get. He’ll just have to grin and bear my feelings even if he isn’t paid to assess them.  
  
“How was the honeymoon?” The tea is still too hot to drink but I can still talk to him with the cup in my hands, I suppose. “You don’t look very tanned.”  
  
He laughs in response, holding his tea steady in his hands. It’s a wonder he hasn’t spilt it all over his lap. “I’ve learnt from previous mistakes, darlin’, I didn’t skimp on sunscreen in the slightest! But I was also under the shade and drinking most of the time.”  
  
“Good to hear. I’ve always had the suspicion you were a raging alcoholic.”  
  
“Only ‘cause it was all-inclusive!” His cheery intonation brings out my own smile. I have no clue how he does it, but if he wants me to cheer up, I always do. Sometimes, he’s almost like a walking antidepressant. “It was wonderful, darlin.’ We brought you something back as a gift, but it’s still in the suitcases and your father’s too sunburnt to lift a finger, the poor thing.”  
  
“Really? You’ve been appraising him as a tanned god since the ’90s.”  
  
“He took his gift for granted and didn’t put a lick of sunscreen on. He was gorgeous at first but he thought he was exempt and ended up redder than me! I told him, I said he’d end up a lobster but did he listen? Of course, he didn’t!” He laughs heartily again and somehow keeps the tea level. It ripples, of course, but they’re barely noticeable. “He’s almost worse than you.”  
  
“You’re like an old married couple already.”  
  
“We are, and it’s nice.” He puts his tea down on the tray and sighs, shoulders slumped forwards. “I’m still jet-lagged, I should probably go and get some sleep.”  
  
“You’ve been home for like, an hour.”  
  
“Oh, darlin!” His head lands in his hands and he laughs. “You’ve been asleep since yesterday.”  
  
“Oh,” I whisper quietly. “Wait, who’s at work?”  
  
“Today is Sunday. Hello, bi-monthly week off.” He slumps and lays down across my bed, resting his back on the covers.  
  
“So, uh, we get a week off?”  
  
“Yeah. And we’re gonna try and cover your ass for this little... what, bout of sadness? I reckon I can get you off with a slap on the wrist, Alto could get you off with an informal warning, any which way.”  
  
“I did work, and the site isn’t in shambles.”  
  
“Not enough, my love, not enough. They expect more, and your little juniors have been neglected. I’d say they’ve been running amok for weeks. You’ll go back to them when we go back, don’t you worry.” He soothes, stretching his back out. It pops in a peculiar way I don’t like. He’s sunburnt, only slightly, beneath his arms. How he ended up sunburnt in that area, I have no clue.  
  
There’s a knock on the attic door and Alto forces himself through what seems like a tiny sliver of space, and he leans against the door. His cheeks are stained red and his black and silver hair almost reflect it, giving his whole body an alien pink hue. Softly, he pads through, feet gingerly touching the floor as if it’s molten. He hops on to the chair and his sizzling feet are soothed; he lifts one into his lap to pity it and rub it tenderly in his hands.  
  
“Jackie, are you dressed?” Alto raises an eyebrow. In the light, I see he’s burnt all over from what looks like hellfire, not the sun of a tropical resort. “My mom’s come to see you.”  
  
“You told her?” Jack raises an eyebrow and lifts his head a little.  
  
“Well, she swung by yesterday while I was chasing Amelia from the house and wanted to know where I was... what was I supposed to tell her? Out chasing birds? She knew I was burnt to a crisp.”  
  
“I didn’t see her.”  
  
“You were having a nap, remember?” He looks up from the chair and showcases his pulsing scarlet arms, nearly bloody from the friction moving casts upon them. “Also, I really, really need you to rub me with that stuff again. This really hurts.”  
  
“In a minute. Why is she here?”  
  
“To see Jackie, obviously. I mean, why else would she be? Remember when Jackie was a teenager and she’d take her out to discuss girl stuff? It’s like that.” Alto sighs. “I could discuss this stuff if you guys would give me a chance. I’ve had more breakups than you have bodies.”  
  
“Alto, honey, you don’t even know what dresses you look good in.” Jack puts a hand over his face and massages his temples. “I wouldn’t trust you to talk about _anything_ with our kids.”  
  
“Oh, please! I look great in a sheath dress!” Alto protests, one of his fists clenched.  
  
“It cuts off your waist and makes your shoulders look disproportional! And I love your shoulders, but it’s too much!”  
  
I groan loudly, cutting them both off from their marital catfight. “Can we just agree that neither of you should ever have children if that’s what you’re prioritising?”  
  
“We already had a kid, Jackie.”  
  
“Yeah, but when I was a kid, you didn’t prioritise _sheath dresses._ Can you guys just... please leave, I need to get dressed.” I sigh in the end, and they just leave.  
  
=========  
  
“So, when I was thirty, I divorced Morthwyl. On a whim, mostly. Well, he’d already given me your father, and your uncles, and your aunt, and I was, frankly sick of him.” Persephone sips her tea and I listen intently. Everything about this meeting is so intensely reminiscent of being fifteen and mad about the world. “And the thing is, it hurt. Just like you’re hurting now. But it gave me a certain kind of freedom after I’d spend half my life with the man, to finally be alone.”  
  
“I thought you killed him.” I raise an eyebrow and lean back in my chair.  
  
She smirks and presses a finger to her eggplant coloured lips. “Another tale for another day.”  
  
“That means you don’t want to tell me.” We both laugh, almost in unison.  
  
“Oh, dear. I might have to tell you, then.” She pushes one of the hair tendrils that erupts from her signature headwrap behind her ear. “Morthwyl wasn’t a good role model for any of my kids; your father, specifically. He was a bonafide womaniser and liar, despite the fact he had a wife at home. Alto would beg and grovel in order to see him - goodness knows what he saw in the sorry excuse for a man - and I started seeing traits I didn’t like in my son. I didn’t raise him to be a womaniser. I could tell the boy was gay, and hiding it, he was seventeen and he spoke of all these women but he only ever spoke of them once before moving on to the next. Morthwyl was never a homophobe, thank god, but he did see his womanising as a sort of trophy and it rubbed off on your father. So I killed him and buried the body in the woods.”  
  
“Oh, that’s a basic way to hide a body.” I scoff. “No lye, no..."  
  
She smiles menacingly. “Oh, honey. There are certain things women like me do with bodies. Such as sacrifice them, and bury what’s left as a token of respect.”  
  
“Fuck, that must have gained you a lot of power.”  
  
“It wasn’t for me, it was for Treble. She was just a baby, only three years old. Morthwyl had always said we would one day have a child without powers, and sadly, the bastard was right. She wasn’t doing anything. He was a weak bender, anyway, and I was weakened at the time because he was leeching from me.” Her smiles are always so smug, yet I always forgive her for it. “Oh well. She’s powerful, now, even if she refuses to acknowledge the fact she’s even a reality bender. You know, I always thought Alto would’ve imbued you with some sort of power.”  
  
“My anklet makes me an anchor.” I tap my fingers on the table and she looks down to see it on my bare ankle.  
  
“The one he made when you were twelve? Both your uncles helped with that.” She smiles in a strange kind of way, it’s not smug this time... it’s more... reminiscent? Of how things used to be. “You thought it was horrible at the time, but you never took it off. I remember when you stayed at mine and you worried you’d tarnish it, but you didn’t know what it really was.”  
  
“Telekill.” I laugh a little. She nods in response. “Nicer than silver, any day.”  
  
She looks at the ring on my finger, which, as promised, I have taken to wearing rather than Amelia. “No, dear, you seem to like gold. I’ve always thought gold looked good on you.”  
  
“I was thinking about maybe getting my ears pierced,” I admit. “I was looking at something gold, to match the ring. I saw these, these drop earrings, with a similar jewel in them to the band.”  
  
“Well, it depends on how low the earrings are. You’d look good in cuffed earrings, and they stay out of the way, as well. Drop earrings aren’t a work thing. Also, my dear, you’ll have to wear studs for the first six weeks, before you can change the things. Back when I was a girl, you pierced your ears in your friend’s bedroom, with an ice cube behind your ear and a hot needle in her hand!”  
  
“I couldn’t imagine doing anything like that. I think I’d rather have a piercing gun.”  
  
“Needles are better, though.” She nods sagely. “They heal up nicely. I’ll do it if you want it done.”  
  
I don’t really know what to say to her. I was _thinking_ about it, keyword _thinking._ But I’d look really fucking good with pierced ears, like, really good, and there isn’t really anything, or anybody, that’s going to object to anything I do with my body. Mostly because I’m thirty-five. And... and I’ll only live once. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to get my ears pierced in my grandma’s house with a needle and a cube of ice behind my ear, and I’m gonna look fucking great. I’ve always wanted to have lots of piercings; my mom, Caroline, did when I was young.  
  
“Fuck it.” I nod in reply. “Let’s... let’s go choose some earrings!”  
  
It dawns on me then and there. I am having a _rampant_ midlife crisis.


	9. An Inspector Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a dead man in Site 19, and an inspector has come to put meaning to his dubious death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO HELLO ALL, im so sorry for forgetting to update last week! ive been super busy reading and all that, plus preparing, designing for the next book (saying now that it might be like. A WHILE before I publish that) So I’ll be back on my normal bullshit now! in two weeks i WILL update I promise!!!! please, enjoy.

“Oh, god.” I cough, walking in to my office as I see the bloody scene upon my once tranquil desk. There’s a little apprehension on my half before my eyes revisit the fresh (by eye alone) corpse, and my desk. I find it the most peculiar - of all things to be drawn to - that my desk waterfall has stopped in its tracks. The poor thing’s probably chocked full of blood and viscera.

That thing was thirty dollars. Not fucking pleased.

To recap, there is a bloody corpse on my desk, and my thirty dollar desk waterfall is going to have to be taken in as evidence. I will never see it again, not that it will ever work again. But it’s my hope that counts. I love my little waterfall! It keeps me so calm. It has this little fishing man that sits on the edge with his rod in the water, and it always makes me laugh because he will never, ever get a catch. Well, he could have gotten some eyeball had the waterfall still have been working, but certainly not a trout. Or a tuna. Or a sturgeon.

How many types of fishes can I name? I’ve done three. Trout, tuna, sturgeon. Okay. I can do more. Goldfish, coolie, tetra, salmon, cod, bass, haddock, clownfish, stingray, (is a stingray a fish? I don’t know.) Carp! Koi, pike, turbot, catfish, OARFISH... perch, anchovy, eel, herring, angelfish, anglerfish, fighting fish, kissing gourami. That’s a lot of fish. How do I know that much about fish? I forget my name sometimes. I forget how old I am. Sometimes I even forget I’ve only ever dated one person that insulted me in a shrimp restaurant... Hey, another fish! Shrimp is a fish, right? Or are shrimp a crustacean? Twenty six fish! Or twenty seven. Twenty three or twenty four if you want to discredit the three fish named before I started naming things.

There are guards walking in from behind me now, and they have guns and tasers and they might even take me in for questioning. Jack is by my side; he expression tells me he’s seen worse in his life but his face has turned a pale, sickly grey and he looks like he might throw up. I take in a deep breath of the inhaler with shaking hands.

“Daddy?” I interrupt the loud ramblings of guards and medics trying to assess the desk guy’s situation. “Are shrimp a fish or a crustacean?”

“Um... I don’t know off the top of my head, honey.” His voice is very disassociated and broken, almost off key.

“Well, if they are, I might have just broken the fish counting record. 27 fish if shrimp are a fish.” I nod at him and look away from the body. “Aren’t you a biologist?”

“I’m a people biologist, not a water one.” He mumbles. He looks away and throws up in the hallway behind my office. I’m so out of it I barely notice until he’s wiping acid away from around his face. “Oh, dear.”

His assistant, a nice young man in his mid twenties, taps him from behind and he turns around slowly. “Not going to ask what’s in there, Doc, but is there anything I can do to help?”

“Can you take me to my husband?” Jack stumbles in his words, still furiously wiping vomit and what I believe to be tears away, though it could just be that weird spit you get before you puke. I think the sight of gored bodies brings back painful memories for him, tears or not. Memories of dying but not being dead. “I wanna go see him now.”

He’s crying. I can hear it in his strangely muffled voice. He’s trying to hide it but he’s not doing a very good job, at all. I think he’s disassociating more than I am but we are both doing a good job of that.

“Alright, I’m gonna take you to see Director Clef. I think he’s in a meeting, so in the mean time, do you want some cold water?”

“No, no, I want my husband, not, not the Director.” He’s very visibly crying and distressed. The assistant looks confused but I know exactly what he means and needs.

“I’ll take him.” I come in between them and take one of his shoulders. “We’ll go to his office, and he’ll see us through the glass, and come out and he’ll hug you, or something to that effect.” It’s hard to stay together but it’s satisfying to know that I can do it, for him. He looks happier now that he’s in my grasp.

I take him away from the assistant, who looks upon us strangely stumbling down the hallway and to the empty elevator. You can tell we’re related by the way we look when we’re experiencing distress. The more emotions I learn, the more I feel like my father completely wiped the board of my mother’s genetics. I lead him in to the elevator and he hits the button. Synchronicity.

The elevator door shuts and I take the inhaler. He looks, and he sees it, clocks how many times I have used it in the past few minutes, but he looks away instead of asking me about what I’m doing. I’m one hundred percent sure he’s going to confront me later but that’s a problem for future me. He’s got asthma, just like I have, and I can tell he’s having no difficulty breathing. His is worse, even.

“Shrimp are crustaceans, by the way.” He mumbles. “They’re like crabs but not as interesting.”

“Crabs don’t have to buy gloves, only mittens.” I hit the inhaler again. I think I’m inhaling more butane than I am albuterol but I don’t care. He looks and he thinks but again doesn’t speak.

That’s a lie. He mutters quietly but I don’t hear him. I don’t hear a single word he says. I think it’s because all I can hear is the hissing of butane and the wheezing expansion of my ribcage sevenfold. He’s looking now, and there’s concern in his eyes, but the concern is wiped nearly clean by the opening of the elevator door. He walks through independently and he sits on a bench opposite the door to Alto’s office. I sit next to him.

“You really shouldn’t use that inhaler so much.” He whispers. “You’ll build immunity.”

“I can’t help it.” I reply. He flashes me a look of concern but he doesn’t follow up on it as the door to Alto’s office swings open to reveal the man himself. He sees his husband, smiles instinctively, but then he analyses his expression and his eyes widen with fear.

“What’s wrong?” He croons, leaning down. “Honey, you’re _crying_. What’s happened? Jackie?”

“Dead body in my office.” I croak. “He threw up.”

Alto lifts Jack from the bench and holds him tight in his arms. He extends one, and beckons me forward. “Come on, beauty. Both of you.” 

Reluctantly, I join him. He’s so much taller than I am, by almost half a foot. He rocks us both with reverence, he kisses Jack’s hair and ruffles mine. He smells like Jack does but strangely more masculine, with more of a musk to it. It’s hard not to catch the scent when I’ve been thrust in to his chest so quickly. 

“My darlings.” He whispers to us both. Jack shakes and trembles, full of memories and bad thoughts. I see someone come in to view, their silhouette, but they don’t interrupt us, even though it’s a strange scene on display. You do this with kids, not middle aged offspring. They never interrupt this kind of thing. “Dead bodies _suck_.”

“Dead bodies? Director, I-“ An intruder interrupts, contradicting my last thoughts. They normally don’t.

“Hush!” Alto commands from behind, and the intruder recoils in to the nothingness they came from. 

“Alright, alright.” The voice draws closer with a few steps. “But, really, dead bodies? Upsetting Dr Jack Bright?”

“We are in a _situation_.” Alto hisses. “And, our names are double barrelled now. Is that too hard to remember?” 

“Dead body. You have a dead body in an office. And all you can do is cuddle?”

“Do you wanna go look at it?” I grumble, watching Jack painfully stifle his free running tears. “Level four, office 13.”

The silhouette leaves down the elevator and Alto keeps holding Jack, though I have the luxury of being able to slip away and get myself something to drink. I opt for a shot of vodka, throwing it back as quickly as I pour it out. Maybe I take a swig directly from the bottle, maybe I’m seen by a senior member of staff.

“I don’t think that’s a very healthy decision. It’s not even eleven a.m., Jackie.” He begins, chastising me. His name is Mikell, he is my uncle, and I do not like him. Neither do I give a fuck, and I throw back my neck and chug the fiery drink. His dismay only grows on his face and it is truly blissful.

Bright family relations are not always as sunny as mine and Jack’s is. Some of them are really nice, _meaningful_ , relationships, lots of care, lots of love, but some are like mine and Mikell’s. We have never gotten on. I think he’s a misogynistic bastard, and he thinks I’m a vapid, entitled valley girl. Hatred of one another is the only thing we can agree on.

I slam the vodka bottle down on the desk and shoot him a look of ‘fuck you,’ or however you phrase that. That expression has me stumped, but I know I can make it, and I know he pisses me off, and I know the face pisses him off. So I do it. 

“There was a dead body in my office, and my desk waterfall is broken.” I chirp. “What’s your excuse for being here, then?”

“Family business, dear.” He begins, pacing along the neat tables with a look of vindication upon his smarmy eyes. They’re the colour of piss and worms and I’m glad I didn’t inherit them. “Things you don’t understand.”

I pour myself another shot and sneer at his approaching form. “I’m not fourteen.”

“I wish you were. Because then I could chastise you for being a mouthy shit.” He glares in return and I throw back the shot. There aren’t many reasons I shouldn’t smash the bottle over the countertop and assault him, but there aren’t many reasons he shouldn’t do the exact same thing to me. “Seeing as you’re in your thirties, and drunk, I think you’d probably hit me with that bottle.”

“Aren’t you just a fucking genius?” I taunt, and I take another shot. He doesn’t scare me, at least that’s what I’m trying to say. If anything gets too close to me I’ll flinch. “Don’t get too close, Mikell. You won’t achieve anything other than a concussion.”

“Why would I want to?” His eyes squint as he shakes his head. I hate the fact I even look close to him in his whorish auburn-ness and piss eyes and his manchild stubble. Couldn’t dad have just synthesised his own genes? Or at least, not used his brother’s?

“Oh Lord, can you two stop arguing for a second?” Alto cuts between us, thank god. And he doesn’t strip me of the vodka, but he doesn’t look very impressed. I think he gets why I’m drinking so early. He knows I’m not an alcoholic, unlike some people. “Mikell, she saw a dead body. Let her _be_. And, Jackie, don’t fucking drink my Grey Goose without asking. You’re not sixteen.”

“Where did you put dad?” I turn towards him and question, still clutching at the bottle with a firm hand.

“Laid him down in the suite so he can rest.” Alto nods and then looks at Mikell. “To tell you the truth, he hasn’t been coping well at all. He knows his body’s getting old, it’s put him at a crossroads of sorts. It’s like, we got back from the honeymoon and he realised that his body was going to die.”

 _Nobody_ told me this. And I’m not pissed, but I’m slightly, uh, yeah, I’m pissed. I think that’s the right word for it. 

“He can make a new one using her DNA, I reckon. I’m getting a bit old myself.” Mikell points at me.

I could go on about why this is a horrible idea. I could go on for a long while. But I am going to summarise it to the fact that me and my father are different people. Very different people. And because I look like him, because all his genes are dominant and basically overpowered my mother when I got made, _because we work at the same place, and we have the same last name_ , people get us confused. Not only do they get us confused, they frankly don’t care, and often just think we’re clones. They think he came second even though I’m 20 years younger than him. They’ll ask me things I don’t know, classified things that are meant for him. I’m treated like a fucking hive mind because of how similar we are and it gets on my fucking tits. _That should be an indicator, for one. He doesn’t have any._

What does it matter? I’m leaving soon. They won’t confuse me and him anymore. Unless they know him over in Michigan and they do. But I hope they don’t.

“He could reconstruct your body in a heartbeat, Mikell. You could be twenty years old if you had a way to get in to it.” Alto lent Mikell a pained expression of sorts and didn’t hold back his dismay at the suggestion. I guess, they are... married, and do, biblical things, I think. I don’t want to think about that. “He’s already said he will be using his own body and reversing it’s age. I believe you were there when he did.” 

“He might have said something to that effect.” Mikell affirms. Both me and Alto seem positively seething. Mikell... he always wants to get a reaction, and he wants it out of as many people as he can. It always works. He’s just... ridiculously provocative, in just about everything he says. 

“You know he did.” Alto responds dryly. 

There’s a knock at the door and all of a sudden, the atmosphere in the room changes completely. As if someone flipped a switch. The glass screen slides open to reveal someone in the doorway, without really prompting it to, and a person of nondescript sex or build steps in to the room with a nod. They’re wearing a small, but sturdy and structured hat and a long beige coat which hangs past their knees. Their face is cast in darkness by the small hat, and I can’t make out any features, but I have the feeling that I know this person.

“There is a dead man in Site 19.” They begin, surveying the room with their hidden eyes. “And I do believe that everyone on this floor is a prime suspect in the death of an innocent.”

I know I didn’t kill the guy. So that clears me. Maybe it was Mikell. I hope it was Mikell. I know he’ll get off with it but it would be nice to smile smugly while he’s on his way to a telling off.

“Who put you on the planet?” Alto splutters and laughs. “What is this, ‘ _An Inspector Calls?’_ I’m not in high school anymore.”

His point is surprisingly clear and I purse my lips. “People die here all the time, we never get people in long trench coats coming in to chastise us for social injustice. But if you want to insult someone, insult him.” I point at Mikell.

“I am not here to plant accusations. I am a person of facts and knowledge, both of those things hold great importance to my investigational efforts.” The sheet closes behind them and they motion for us to sit down. I listen, and so does Alto, but Mikell does not. “The five suspects that are on this floor are all innocent until proven guilty.”

“Five?” I raise an eyebrow.

“That would be... me, you, Mikell, Gears and Jack...” Alto looks towards me.

“And I’m sure those two will make an appearance later on. For now, I will work with the three of you.” They surveil us once more, gliding their eyes across the room. “Miss Bright-”

“Doctor Bright!” I yell. I’m so fucking sick of these people. “I have a credential!”

“Jackie, you were the first person to see the body, weren’t you?” They smile smugly. They know I hate them right now but I’m too tired to protest any further. 

“Me and my father.” I answer. “I don’t see how-”

“The coroner’s report has come in, and the victim, one Doctor Eric Wilkinson, was dead by 12am this morning. Where were you last night, Jackie?”

“Hang on, me, my husband and my daughter - we were at the movies last night.” Alto answers for me. “Clearly, we didn’t kill Eric.”

“Eric, wasn’t that one of the original characters in An Inspector Calls?” Mikell paces towards the table. “You’re a fake, you’ve read the book and you want to make us think.”

The Inspector doesn’t reply to Mikell, but instead looks back at me and Alto. “And if I went to the theatre you want to, I would see that you had purchased tickets?”

“And the rest! I got us popcorn and drinks. I have the receipts in my wallet.” Alto pulls his wallet from his pocket and fumbles for last night’s receipt, thrusting it towards the Inspector. 

“But here, it says you were done by 11pm.”

“Yeah. We were in _San Diego_. It was a two hour drive home, not even to this Site, which is another three quarters of an hour away.”

“Sure, sure, Director. I believe you. Except... aren’t you a reality bender? Meaning you could’ve come here if you had wanted?” The Inspector’s voice grows heavy and cloudy; it’s accusatory and violent. Even though they said they didn’t accuse people. 

“Well, I didn’t. And I think all three of us would agree on that.” He shakes his head. “We went straight home. And what would my motive be if I were to have killed a random doctor, one I don’t know? Anger? Power? You’ll find I’m perfectly content in my life. So why would I kill this doctor, hm?”

“Maybe you didn’t. Maybe Jackie did.” Mikell finally sits down, next to me, and he smiles smugly. “Aren’t you always angry about your perception?”

The Inspector lifts their head; they look intrigued by Mikell’s indication. “Perhaps she did. Alto, did she stay late at work last night?”

“She did, yes.” Alto nods. “But she only stayed an hour. You’d have a time of death closer to around... what, seven? Six? Even if there had been time to bleed out, it wouldn’t have taken you to twelve.”

“What on earth is going on in here?” Dr Gears joins the suspect lineup, by entering the room. His slicked black hair is shiny, nearly silver in the light cast by the window. He assumes a seat next to Mikell and inspects the Inspector with his steely gaze, but from what I can tell he doesn’t deduct a thing.

“Dr Gears.” The Inspector says patiently. “Are you aware of the-"

“Presence of a dead body? Yes. And I can tell you right now that I was not the killer.”

“That’s what we’ve been saying for the past ten minutes, they don’t fucking buy that!” I hiss, and his heavy gaze switches it’s attention to me.

“Dr Bright, I am laying my case. I have an alibi, as the three of you do.” He returns his attention to the Inspector. “I was at home, you’ll find. With my cats. The logs will tell you I clocked out at the normal time, and had I killed during the day... well, you’ll know I would have been found already.”

“The security footage lines up with your alibi, as well as the logs submitted to the Director. But, - and this is on the security footage - did you not slip something in to a person’s drink?” The Inspector tilts their head. “Omission is just the same as lying, my friend. You didn’t drink that... I wonder who did? A cleaner found that cup had dregs of ricin inside.”

“I’m sure that is not the crime you are here to solve. Ricin poisoning would not have caused the man downstairs such bloody wounds.”

“And how would you know how the body looked?”

“Dr Jack Bright-Clef suffered a rather... concerning reaction to the body, and Dr Bright here told me where it was.” Gears retained his composition. He killed someone? With ricin? Why? I want to be the Inspector now, even if the crime doesn’t really concern me.

“And where would Dr Jack Bright be now? I had assumed he was with you.”

“Well, I’m not sure where he went.” 

“My husband is resting in my suite. And his name is double barrelled with mine, Inspector.” Alto sighed deeply. “I can get him for you, if you want to interrogate him.”

“Interrogate who?” Jack peeps in to the room, still deathly pale and droopy in posture. “Is this about the body?”

“Yes, this is about the body.” The Inspector turns and looks at Jack. “Dr Bright-Clef, would you sit down?”

Jack sits, and he assumes a place next to Alto, who holds Jack’s hands beneath the desk with a comforting, yet awkward smile.

“What’s your alibi, then?” The Inspector speaks softly, with what I believe to be a smile. But it’s not a sardonic smile, it’s a kind one, a comforting one. 

“I went to the movies last night, with my husband and my daughter.” Jack responds weakly... but he’s faking it. I can tell that inside he’s plotting something, or that he knows something that he’s not gonna tell. “In San Diego, nowhere near here. I promise, we never had anything to do with it.”

“Please, Inspector, reconsider my previous statement; Jackie was here out of hours and was the one to _report_ the body.” Mikell suggests, extending a hand to the Inspector.

“Jackie would never!” Jack gasps, forcing his hand over his chest.

“Her fingerprints are on the body.” The Inspector intensifies their gaze. “Was it perception?”

“Of course they are!” I call. “He died over _my_ desk! My fingerprints are all over my desk. And, and, ‘perception’ isn’t a motive! Why would I brutally murder someone just because they were a doctor? I’m a doctor! I have a degree, a PhD, even, in theoretical physics!”

“Maybe you’re jealous of the fact he’s referred to as doctor, and people don’t use your proper title. Didn’t you go through a breakup recently? After fifteen years? All of your emotions are heightened, perhaps you became so angry you took a knife and stabbed the shit out of some guy who always has enough respect to be called by their rightful title.” Mikell looks down at me through his piss eyes.

I whip my pistol out and point it at him. Trouble arises in the room, fretting on either sides, but my voice remains calm. “How did you know the weapon was a knife? Maybe you killed him, just because you could, just because you have power within the Foundation. Because you wanted to knock someone down a few steps.” I press the barrel of my gun against his throat. “Who was it, _Cowboy_? Who did you think was digging too deep? Was it Eric? Or was it his colleague, his partner in crime? Is that why you’re here? I had access to the meeting schedule not a month ago, and you, my friend, were not on it.”

“I wanted to surprise my new brother-in-law.” He trembles through gritted teeth. 

“You don’t just _surprise_ the Director of a Site.” I poke it further against the fuzzy, barely bearded skin of his neck. “You came here for unfinished business and stayed to give yourself an alibi.”

He doesn’t seem to want to aggravate me more than he already has. He doesn’t want to get shot; even if he survives, it’ll be messy and painful, and he knows for a fact I’ll shoot if provoked further. He’s seen me do it, several times. He puts up his hands as if to surrender the truth. “Don’t shoot me. You know that’s gonna land you in trouble. And just because daddy is powerful doesn’t mean you can always get out of every situation you land yourself in.”

“Oh, please!” Jack calls and stands up. “I killed him, is that not clear to you? I had permission and I had _reason_. I had to test a new neurodegenerative - as well as being tissue degenerative - and he was my target. The neurodegenerative has a similar chemical fingerprint to ricin, Gears slipped the poison in to the victim’s drink.”

I drop my gun on to Mikell’s lap, hitting him in the balls. He gasps inward in shock and pain. But everyone in the room knows that there is something inherently wrong with Jack’s last statement. The corpse was a _doctor_ , why would Jack test on him? And then it dawns on me, as well as Mikell, what he’s doing.

“So why did you do it, Dr Bright-Clef? Are you so depraved of emotion, so desensitised that you just... did it? Why did you have Gears poison it? Were you so afraid of getting caught? And if you had permission, why would you have someone else do your dirty work? Furthermore, why would you waste the time of your brother and daughter if you knew the whole time you were the killer?”

Jack pulls a pistol from his pocket and points it at the Inspector. “Because you’re not really an Inspector, are you? If you had worked here, if you were of _any_ esteem you would know we don’t test on employees.” He barely even shakes, simply holds the pistol cocked at arm’s length and ready to shoot. “So I’ll ask, Inspector, who are you?”

“Honey, don’t make any brash accusations-” Alto looks up and pleads.

“No. I know what I’m doing.” Jack affirms and continues to aim the barrel at the Inspector with a close, searing gaze. They’re pinned to the chair by his heavy, piercing eyes. I don’t know how he can be like this just after throwing up. Honestly, I wish I had my shit together. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

The Inspector doesn’t respond to him, and he presses further not only with the gun but with his gaze, the cold metal nearly grazing their skin. He grows closer, he presses the gun against the Inspector’s forehead. 

“Don’t.” Alto whispers softly. “Jack-”

“I am perfectly, _perfectly_ within my rights to shoot you.” Jack grinds his teeth. “Whoever you are, you don’t work here.”

The Inspector remains silent and looks down. Jack leans down, his glare becoming even sharper. He takes in a breath and he flicks the hat off the Inspector’s head in a flash, revealing lime hair and star freckles. I grasp for my gun, stabbing Mikell in the balls again, and I join him in aiming at the imposter. Yui trembles in the chair and forces her neck down near her shoulders.

“How the _FUCK_ did you get out of the Ozarks?!” I shriek, pointing my gun close to her face. I have no clue what to say to her in this situation.  
  
Alto restrains her from behind while Jack keeps her tense at the front, and she finds herself tied to the chair and unable to move. She darts from the seat and to the other side of the room, building an impenetrable fence around herself. Alto bends the bars with a single look, crumbling her prison to pieces. She picks up a piece and morphs it into a gun, he turns it in to a bagel; and he summons it and eats it with a sadistic smile. 

She scrambles for the door but it disappears in a flash and I tackle her from behind, twisting her wrists behind her back and holding her firmly in my grasp as if that’ll change the situation. She whines and falls to the floor, clearly weakened, but I’m too dubious to let go of her. Under my restraints her fingers appear to be turning blue but I’m not letting go of her and I am holding my pistol against her temple.

This is _wrong_. This is horrendously, inexplicably wrong. I’m holding a gun against the head of a seventeen year old girl and there are three more pointed at her, poised to kill or maim as quickly as possible. Alto walks towards her slowly and lifts her head up.

“Tell me how you got out.” His voice quivers and she whimpers. As she doesn’t respond, he grows more irate. “I will shoot you if you don’t tell me.”

“You can’t stop me.” She chokes. “This body was too weak for me. But I’ve got more now. And I’ll take the whole Site if you’re not careful.”

“Yui. I will strip you of your powers and kill you if you don’t tell me how you got out.”

“You’ve already stripped my powers.” She splutters again and Alto forces my gun harder into her head. He pulls his own from inside his shirt. I don’t think it was ever there, I think he just materialised it. 

He points it at her forehead and his voice grows grating and angry. “You tell me what you’re playing at here and I will let you live.”

She starts laughing and I flinch, though not hard enough to loosen my monstrous grip on her. It feels like I’m a monster. Also, I have no fucking clue, in the slightest, either why she’s laughing or why she can’t escape my grasp. Alto can’t remove her powers like that, can he? He can. I think. If he can see it, he can change it. Which renders her essentially useless. It renders her _human_ , and therefore, _innocent_.

Or maybe not. I’m assuming she was ‘Eric’s’ real killer. If he ever really existed, which I doubt.

“You’re all fucking idiots.” She chokes again, and everyone but me and her disappear. Why me? I don’t know, actually, and I’m proud of not knowing, because I really don’t want to know. Evil monologue, maybe. She pins me against the wall without even lifting herself up and she then pins me against the wall herself. Prick, much? I can see nothing but her.

She’s got hands on my shoulders and I have the same urge I always get; to clock her square in the face and bite her, then maybe bite myself and throw myself out the window. All four of those things sound great! I take my own hands and push into her chest, right in the weak spot of her chest, hoping to hurt her so I can maybe shoot her and then see where my parents have gone. 

“I run this Site now. Not your dads, not any of your little friends. You answer to me now.” 

Struggling, I jam my thumbs into her eyes but she barely flinches; instead, her eyes become mouths and swallow my thumbs whole. I try to scream - though nothing comes out my mouth - and knee her in the crotch, but all I feel is soft, malleable cloth. She’s become a rag doll, and she’s fallen to the ground accordingly. The room is back. I catch something strange in the mirror.

My ankle is bare and the anklet has disappeared, but what’s more concerning is the fact I don’t have a mouth. She took my mouth away.


	10. Dream Sequence Three: Unreality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie dreams.

Simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. That’s how I feel. Scattered among the trees and flowers I’m traversing, as if I’m dust. I’m wearing a skirt and a top but I don’t know if they’re see through or not, I’m sure that’s a sign of vulnerability in a dream. I know that I am vulnerable and I know that I am dreaming but I don’t want to change what I’m doing because I know, I know what’s waiting for me as soon as I wake up. So I’m choosing, with all my might, to stay asleep and not wake up as long as I can, until something scares me.

If I could, I’d take a shot right now. I sit down on the grass, underneath a cherry tree, and I find I have sat on cold stone rather than a warm patch of grass, as is guaranteed in Californian summer. It’s not just stone, and my back doesn’t sit against a tree, this is a gravestone. I know it’s my own coffin beneath me, but there’s no inscription on the gravestone. It’s just smooth, blank, grey marble. But a seat is a seat, whether it’s my gravestone or not.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. All I know is that I exist in a vacuum here; there is no wind, only heat and the coldness of the gravestone beneath me. And that is all there is. I don’t know why it’s so hot and I don’t know why the gravestone is so cold. Even the flowers just across from me and the stone are still, all paused in various positions as if someone took the wind and destroyed it right in it’s tracks. Like time has been paused. 

I look up. The only other thing that moves is Jack’s amulet, swaying from a small, spindly branch. The ruby glints under the sunlight and hits my foot, but the longer I look at the amulet the more deformed it becomes. It melts, almost, and it drips to the floor, burning the grass and becoming its own tombstone. The wind suddenly howls like an alarm, pulsating with life and danger, the flowers are blown from their stationary positions and the tree upheaves from behind me before I am blown away along with the tombstones, and the world sinks in to a giant vortex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehee sjort chaper. its getting real good soon my men. i don’t think i even knew what would happen at the end when i wrote it hheeh . anyway uhhh, i am Work Ing on the third Novel now, trying very hard . its not very similar to the last two books but im sure people will like it :) i hope at least


	11. Who Killed Jackie Bright?

The corridors are fucking huge. That’s all I know how to really describe in this hellhole of halls and lanes and paths from one place to the next, and it boils my fucking blood. Boils it enough to make me scream, but I don’t have a mouth. So I can’t scream. Kinda like that sci-fi story, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. Fucked up little story. But I don’t think I’m paranoid enough to be Ted. Am I? I don’t know. I really don’t. And frankly, I don’t really... no, I do care. I think I care. But I think I care more about being dehydrated and hungry and possibly even delusional. 

Jack and Alto got sent home. Well, not home, but Alto’s hometown, and they haven’t been able to leave because for some reason, the whole town is blocked off. Well, I know why. Ms Yui Sakura and her power fantasy. But I have to hope they’re trying to get to me. And that they’re going to fix this. Or at the very least, tell me what to do. But as I grow closer to Yui, as I crawl through this maze of corridors and linoleum, their time to tell me what I have to do in order to survive is running out, and it’s running out fast. Because when I get to her, I won’t be able to ask them. And I will have to cope on my own, and I will have to plant a bullet in her head with precision I know for a fact I don’t have. 

I must believe, and I must hope, that by some machination I’ll survive her and her torrent of power and destruction. I have to hope that Site 19 isn’t too far gone and when I kill her my parents will find me, or at least someone else. Maybe Alto will give me my mouth back. I would like to have a mouth again.

Well, I have a mouth. I have a nice mouth, just like I always have, but my niggle is that I have no lips to speak of and therefore cannot speak. Which is, in that wording, ironic. 

The corridors are blank and white, generated to confuse and disorient, and it really, really works in my vulnerable state. I feel like they shift as I wander through them aimlessly, hoping I’ll find Yui at their core, or at the other side, or maybe even just find her wandering and shoot her and beat her to death with my gun. Maybe that’s not a good plan and I should shoot her first. In the head. The best way to do it is twice in the chest and once in the head, that’s what daddy told me. And I can say that twice over with pride. Or I would, if I had a mouth. But let’s be real, if I did have a mouth, then I would have pressed my pistol to the roof of it, winced and shot without hesitation. 

There aren’t any windows. I cannot break my legs by jumping out of them, which is making coping pretty hard. Instead, what I have is a tense in my legs - I want to break them by sheer force if I cannot jump out a window in order to break them. Sometimes I wonder why that’s my go-to thought whenever conflict or confrontation is at hand, and I think it has something to do with changing the subject to my smashed calves. I’d rather the calves go than the thighs. What are the calf bones called? I can’t ask. Fibulas, I believe. I always think about breaking my fibulas in conflict. But I don’t really want to break my femur. I think that would be a genuinely bad idea. For a few reasons! But I have nor the time nor the mouth to explain them to anyone.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if all my bones went away. Then I remember I would probably die and I stop thinking about what would happen if all my bones went away. Because I don’t really want to jinx anything, including how long my bones stay in my body. 

The truth is, I get a lot of thoughts about how I’m gonna get killed in this job. I’ve thought of it all; kidnapped and held ransom; executed by firing squad; killed by lizard; poisoned; betrayed... I think about it in what I think is my obsession with myself. But I have never, not ever, indulged any thoughts about dying in a maze made by a teenage girl with a god complex without a fucking mouth. So, my death is not happening as it was ever, ever planned to happen. And y’know what? I think that’s absolute fucking bullshit.

I catch the sight of a black apparition moving slowly across the corridors. It’s really just a dash of light, or an absence of it, but I follow it from paces behind. It almost feels refreshing to follow it through the halls, though I don’t know how long I follow it for, or how far it takes me. All I know is that I am growing further into the maze’s confines, and I am getting closer to Yui. I am getting much closer. I can feel the chaos that surrounds her; it emanates across the maze and it’s growing stronger with every step I take in the direction of the travelling light.

My phone buzzes. _beauty. are you okay._

**no. i still have no mouth. but i think I’m getting closer**

_thats progress gorgeous. just keep going. ur gonna get there in the end and all u gotta do is shoot the bitch. no second thoughts._

**honestly if I don’t kill her with my shot I’ll break her fucking jaw. how are you**

_we’re okay. ur dad and i are having trouble sleeping. a lot of trouble, actually. we’re worried about u_

**soon, dad. ill be done soon. and if not then i don’t fucking know what I’m gonna do.**

_well, honey, neither of us do. ive tried to get out, ive tried to fucking teleport, it’s all useless. i don’t know what to do. even my mom tried to do it and she couldn’t do it._

**maybe it’s reality bender proof or something. and you could just go up to it say this isn’t reality bender proof anymore. that could work. idk im not a reality bender.**

  
_do u want to be_

**no, not particularly.**

The apparition keeps walking and I follow it intently, though I try not to let it see me. I try not to see it, keeping a small glance at the bottom of it. If it sees me, I don’t know what it’ll do, and therefore I don’t look at it and I follow behind, leaving a gap. As I reach the strangest crossroads I’ve ever seen, it disappears. Yui erupts from the ceiling, hanging down through a broken tile.

“Lost?” She chortles cheerfully. I could shoot her here and now. Which I do, but the bullet phases straight through her. “Oh dear, Jackie, looks like I’m not real.” She fades away and I scream, I try to. Hands balled in to fists, I hit myself in the side of the head, grip my knotted hair and pull down hard enough to snap it off, but nothing ever happens as someone lifts my hands away from my hair.

“If she wants to be a ghost, I can do that, too.” Alto mumbles. He holds me for a few moments, runs his hands over his arms. “This is, uh, a pretty dangerous manoeuvre, so your dad is gonna throw a bucket of water over me in a few minutes, what do you need?”

I motion towards my mouth and he opens it like a zip. “Fuck. Thanks.”

“No problem, beauty. Bullets?”

I hand him the gun. “How the fuck are you doing this?”

“Looked at myself in the mirror and told myself I could do it. You can become pretty powerful that way.” He admits, nodding slowly. He slips his hand over the gun and it becomes much heavier. “We don’t have much time, gorgeous. I’m gonna try and get here in time to help you, but I don’t know if I can. We’re still stuck, and I’m actually tied up in a chair in my mom’s kitchen.”

“The fuck, dad?” 

“It’s a spell. Rips my soul from my body, puts it where I want it to go. But, too long away and it’s permanent, so your daddy’s gonna have to try and bring me back. There are a few ways to do it, he’s throwing water on me first. Then smelling salts, and if push comes to shove he’ll kiss me right on the lips.” He hands back the gun. “Infinite bullets. Go crazy.”

“ _Shit_! Infinite, infinite?” My eyes widen at the thought of being able to take as many pot shots as I want when I’m out of here, without even having to pay for bullets.

“Yes, honey. That gun will never run out of bullets, but don’t make me regret doing that for you.” He sighs. He pulls something from his pockets - my anklet, which I lost days prior - and presses it in to my hand gently with a calming slide of my fingers. “Lord knows how, but this ended up with a broken clasp at my mother’s house.”

“She pierced my ears.” I nod, showing him the sparklers. He’s seen them, but I’m pretty proud of them. “That’s probably how, I kicked and screamed.”

“Well, you have it now. And you can’t lose your mouth, or your cool gun, when you have it on. It protects you from getting bent, you know that.”

“Haha, bent.” I chortle, trying to hold it back, but it doesn’t work, and dad laughs with me.

“Anything else, honey?” He asks, attempting to recover from his laughing fit.

“Where is she? Yui, I mean.” I ask, and his eyes take on a strange expression of weight on his shoulders and he looks around anxiously though the corridors. “I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“That one. Straight on. The rest are fake, you’ll find dead ends. She’s hoping you’ll get frustrated and shoot yourself before you can shoot her. But I know you, Jackie, you’re strong willed. And I can trust you to do what you need to.” He soothes and strokes my shoulder gently. “You’re gonna do it, and me and your dad are gonna come back, and everything is gonna be fine. Really, really fine. So don’t worry, sweetheart. Best way to kill a reality bender? You shoot them in the head as soon as they’re not looking.”

“I know. You told me, daddy.”

He puts both his hands on my shoulders and lends me a calming smile. My eyes drift away, almost instinctively. “You know what, honey?”

“What?” I ask, but when I return my eyes to him, he’s gone. “Aw, fuck.”

I walk down the first corridor, gun in hand, and I sneak close to the walls so I don’t have to monitor my back. As I shift across the white walls I hide my neck in my shirt, and I swivel my eyes nearly constantly to check for threats. I hold the gun cocked and ready to shoot, pointed outwards in order to kill anything I don’t like. There could easily be skips out here, if I’m not careful. But I am careful. That’s why I’m holding the gun in my hands and I’m pointing it out and I’m ready to shoot. _Careful_. And I’m gonna shoot the ever loving shit out of Yui when I get to her. I hyperventilate, only slightly. Or maybe, I’m hyperventilating a lot. But it’s better than breathing normally and freaking out and _regulating_ myself, god forbid.

Fuck regulation. I got this far in a haze, barely paying attention to what was going on. And I’m here now, and I’m gonna get there and I’m gonna kill a little bitch no matter how old she is because I want my fucking parents back and I want my Site back and for fuck’s sake, I want my motherfucking bed back! I haven’t slept properly in days and my back is turning to dust.

I turn a sharp corridor and I enter complete darkness. The darkness stinks of Yui, and I mean that; she stinks of sugar and candyfloss. It’s overbearing and distracting, and the sheer volume of the stench causes my adjusting eyes to water. I keep my back against a solid surface and I grip the gun with an iron grasp. 

I can barely see anything in the darkness but I can discern a shape or two with my limited eyesight, the shapes of cylinders and tubular wires that hang from the ceiling. I don’t know this room, and I don’t think it’s supposed to exist. But I know for a fact that it is there, and I am going to have to learn my way around it should I want to escape. I know the reality anchor is nearby, I can feel it in the unrest, and I just have to get to it as soon as she’s been shot. And when I do, I will go home. Maybe I’ll even get myself a gas station hot dog.

I creep across the floor, trying to keep my back against the wall, but suddenly it disappears and there is no wall. I shrink down against what I think is a wall and I feel a sticky substance that graces the floor. It solidifies around my hand and I recoil it, wiping it against my skirt. It’s candy. My hands smell like candy, hard candy, the boiled stuff, and it’s drying quickly. A dim pink glow surrounds the sticky patch and my hand, and I look up to find it’s also on the ceiling, a soft pink glow that carries on across the ceiling. 

Abandoning my post, I walk cautiously in the direction of the trail, step by step. My toes curl under in my heeled boots and I consider ditching them to make my footsteps even quieter than they currently are. I creep and crawl, crossing like a tightrope, the gun my balance. The trail suddenly crawls down a wall and illuminates a small opening, which I can barely fit though, but I do it with the gun cocked and ready.

There is just a moment of pitch black, not even a pink glow in the room, before it illuminates instantly - a blinding, pure white that glints in my eyes and forces a hasty tear that rushes down my face. When I regain my sight Yui is arranged precariously on a lit red cross stood before me, arms out to her side as if she has arranged her own crucifixion. Wires and tubes pump from her body, tying her together. She is mangled and decrepit, nothing like the well kept girl I saw not days before. I don’t know why she has done this, and frankly, I am scared.

“You made it.” Her voice echoes across the room with heavenly reverb, but a word does not leave her mouth. “What are you gonna do with that gun, Jackie? Are you gonna shoot me?”

I don’t reply. But I aim the gun straight at her head. And I know for a start that this isn’t going to work, but I have the anklet back now, so I have to hope. 

“What the fuck have you done?” It dawns on me again that she is a kid, not some criminal mastermind. A kid, who just wanted to have fun, and now she has to die because of what she’s done. I don’t want to be her executioner. “You’re gonna fucking kill yourself, Yui!”

“And that isn’t what you’re gonna do? You’re not gonna kill me?” She smiles with a glare, but she again, doesn’t speak. Her voice simply reverbs around the nearly endless room, not that I can see any end to it in sight. “You’re gonna kill me. I know you are.”

“This is a death sentence. You’re a reality bender, summon a mobile task force! They’ll contain you and you won’t have to die, Yui. It’s not too late.” My voice trembles under the stress. “ _Please. You can save yourself. You don’t have to die_.”

Her eyes finally open and she looks at me, her bloodshot eyes piercing me a thousand times over. She’s just a kid. And she does not have to do this. She can live.

“I will live, Jackie. I would rather stay right here than live in containment.” Her eyes become narrow and sardonic, burning through my form in every way except for physically. The fact that her voice is disembodied barely even bothers me anymore, I’m just used to it. I am more distressed for her wellbeing, and what’s wrong with her on the inside. I feel bad, almost, because I know there’s no convincing her to stay rational, and stay alive. “I’m a fucking _reality bender._ Site-19 is mine now. And I’m gonna control it.”

“If not me, you’re gonna get killed by someone. Someone will plant a bullet in your head and you’re gonna die, Yui. They’ll catch you off guard, they’ll kill you, experiment on you.” I don’t know why I’m so worked up over this, after everything she’s done to me and my parents. “ _Yui_. Think rationally. You need to let this go and let them take you so you don’t have to die, you deserve a life, and maybe one day when you’ve grown up and matured you can escape and live a good life, get a wife- a husband, even, and you can have kids and give them anime names if you’re that way inclined. Your life doesn’t have to end here.”

“I don’t want that. What I want is here and now.” Her voice cuts through everything I try to say to her. It’s like she wants a reason to prove me wrong even though I know I am right. 

“And what if there’s a hell, Yui? Do you wanna go to that?” I step towards the cross and I make the gun clear to her open eyes. She needs to see it. “I will kill you if you don’t do this. I don’t want to have to do that, but I will have no other choice if you don’t make the right one now.”

“Souls don’t go to hell, Jackie. They wait in the ground until the day of reckoning and souls try to crawl out before their bodies decay. They die every time, they die over and over again trying to get out, but it’s that or you wait in the pit.” She chokes on her tears. Her mouth is working. “I’ve seen it. I’m going to go to the pit. And you’re not.”

One of her fingers extends and it blasts a burst of energy at my head, which the anklet refuses to deflect and instead works it way through me. I see fragmented memories of a million lives, but they are of me, and myself, faces I don’t recognise and pain I don’t want to feel. I see arches of gold and green, and a pang of pain hits my left knee. There’s power, sadness, magic, in what I see, even though I can’t comprehend in the slightest what I’m seeing in the moment she hits me with the energy. I cower back from the revelations, shaken, and still holding my gun.

“I don’t know what that was and I don’t fucking want to know, Yui!” I aim my gun straight at her. My hands are shaking and there are tears streaming down my face. “Are you gonna fucking call the task force or not? Are you gonna make the right choice? Because I can’t make you!” I choke, ready to break down and cry. 

She doesn’t reply and I can’t give her any more chances. So I aim my gun at her head and I take a sudden shot at her head, right in her temple. The crucifix crumbles and her body crumples to the ground, breaking the wires and revealing her, mostly naked save for conveniently placed fig leaves. I break down, I see her, the bullet in her head, and suddenly she is just a child again, not a criminal, not someone who had to die. But she chose to. She chose to die, and that’s on her, not me. She would have died either way.

There is a moment in which I stare at her face and I arrange her body neatly, trying not to touch her or get her sparkling blood on my hands. It leaks from her head like hair and bloodies my knelt knees, painting my tights a shade of scarlet red. Redder than even my hair. I’ve killed people so many times, but this time I can’t help but cry over Yui’s death. I don’t kill kids. I don’t want to kill kids. And before me, laid like an angel, is a child. 

I straighten her up and I close her open eyes, fading from a powerful red to a deep grey colour. The green colour of her hair shrinks back in to her scalp, revealing a rich brown, and the little stars that decorate her face become normal freckles. The lesions from the wires stay on her body, bleeding now normal blood, not sparkling, through her wrists and ankles, the back of her neck. But the rest of her body is a pure white, and white clothes materialise on her body, draping her ready for a funeral.

The walls cave in on themselves in to nothingness, just dust that floats away into the atmosphere, and we are in the very fields I was raised in, surrounded by flowing wheat and corn and crops. I used to sit here with my father and braid his hair when it grew longer. This is my space, and her blood taints it. Her eyes don’t flicker and her chest doesn’t rise; she’s simply dead, with nothing else to it, no magic, no reanimation, nothing. Simply a dead girl on tilled dirt.

All that, for this moment. She was so powerful in life and she is completely powerless in death. Everything I have been through was fixed in a single moment, a single bullet and sudden death. I’m home now. And I could go home and I could sleep in a nice bed. My home is just behind me; if I looked back from Yui, I would see it. And it would be so easy to go home, but I can’t. I can’t do it, I can’t just leave her here on her own to rot.

Maybe it’s my own morality. Or maybe it was because she was a Mary Sue and she wanted everyone to love her. She just wanted to be _loved. That was it. And I killed her, she won’t exist anymore._ Am I a monster? I think I’m a monster. I could have called the team myself. She didn’t have to die. She didn’t have to die. And I don’t want to go through this. I don’t want to deal with this. And I should not have to. 

She is a body, I am still alive, and I am crying in the fields, waiting for someone to take me away. Amelia would’ve taken me away. But she isn’t here anymore, is she? She’s not even living in my house anymore. 

It feels like years have passed since I shot her but it’s been mere moments since the gun fell from my hands. I’m not well versed in dead girl etiquette, nor dead people etiquette. I don’t know what to say to her or how to react to her or her body. I feel like I have to say something.

“It’s okay.” I whisper to the body. I feel delirious and spiralling. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

There is someone in the fields, watching me, casting a glare over me in the sunset. I can’t tell who, I don’t think I know them. And I don’t want to know. I’m shaking and I’m busy freaking out over here. There’s a rustle and a crinkle through the wheat as I sit with the body, and the sudden cock of a gun. There’s a moment of apprehension, but something keeps me glued to my position on the floor, even if my legs are soaking up blood. I need to run.

The muzzle of a gun pokes from the wheat and before I can move I am shot twice; once in the chest, and once in the throat. The pain is immense, and it knocks me back off my perch to the path in which my mother traverses fo look over the fields. I choke and splutter, but it barely comes out, simply chokes in the bloody hole in my throat. It hurts so much I can barely even focus on the pain, but instead the dire situation in which my life seems to want to end in. 

I breathe, and I look up at the purple and red sunset. The observatory is to my left and the small apple orchard is to my right. Even though my chest is pounding and pumping blood, and my breath is choked by the messy gun wound I’m peaceful, and I’m serene. I think that this is an alright way to die. Because I saved everyone that I loved, and my fathers are safe, and my mom is safe, and my grandma is safe, and hopefully Amelia is safe, despite her shortcomings.

I love them all. I love my family, I really do. The sky is a beautiful purple and red. Mom always used to say something like that; ‘red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.’ Not that she was ever a shepherd, she’s always preferred produce because there’s less cleaning up, but we had chickens when I was a kid. One of them laid an egg in Jack’s lap after falling asleep there. He ended up eating it, it had another egg inside that cracked when he opened it over the pan. I ate the tiny egg, there wasn’t much there but come on, it was a tiny fucking egg and it was so cool.

No, this is a good way to die. It’s not good to die, it never is, but I’m dying somewhere comfortable and I can see a sunset, maybe even some stars. They’re coming in to view slowly, tiny specks of light that twinkle in the violet sky, smiling. 

I’m not a very spiritual person. It’s not my kind of thing, it never has been. I never chose to follow a religion, and in my last moments that’s... that’s hard. I’m going to die, and I don’t know where I’m going to go. But I think over my life - and my career, specifically - I have learnt that I am not, in any way, entering nothingness. Yui said something about a pit - and what it was I can’t remember - but I would rather go live among the stars above me. They look peaceful, and what I want is peace. Whether I will be punished or rewarded is another question, and I don’t have an answer to it. I haven’t kept track.

That’s maybe my biggest regret. I’m dying at the age of thirty six, half a life, and I don’t even know what I did. I don’t know the impact I will leave on the world. All I know is that I am leaving it in a better state than it was five minutes ago. Did I leave it in a better state than it was when I was born? I don’t know. I don’t remember, because I have spent so much time living in the moment and getting everything done, I never spent a moment looking at my life and what I’ve achieved. Quite a lot. I think. 

Is this a hero’s death? Am I a hero? Have I saved everyone I can? I think I have. And I love my dads. I love my mom. I love grandma, and I love Amelia. Every one of those people is safe and I am dying a hero because they’re gonna live a better life, even if I’m not there. That’s selflessness, I think. And that makes me a good person. Good enough to live in the stars? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe the good outweighs the bad. But I have to hope that my death does something.

I can’t move very much. I’m very tired, and my eyesight starts to waver above me. The stars are almost doubling as my eyes become unfocused and dazed. This is it. Eyesight is always the first to go, that’s what Jack says. I’m quite surprised that I made it this long without dying, shots to the heart can kill you within thirty seconds. Or maybe it hasn’t been thirty seconds yet. Maybe I’m dying faster than I should.

As my eyesight fades, there is a frantic pattering down the small dusty lane. Jack is panting, and I can hear him clearly; it’s like the loss of my eyes has forced my hearing to be better. I can see him slightly, as he runs towards me he slides to the ground and he pants and cries and holds my hand in his.

He lets out an agonised wail. His hands are shaking as they hold and rub mine, squeezing gently. “Oh, baby...” He cries, almost unable to speak. “Please, baby, darlin’-” He chokes on his own tears and blubbers his next words, utterly incomprehensible. I love him. He rests his hands over my chest and wails again, recoiling at the sight of the blood. I can barely see him, but I can’t move either. I can’t signal to him that I’m still here.

Alto frets from behind Jack, pulling on his grey hair. He falls to his knees and buries his head in the metaphorical sand of the ground, barely unable to speak, but I can feel him cry through the ground. 

Down in the fields where I spent my childhood, I am dead on the dirt while my fathers, just blobs of people, break down by my side. My hearing turns to ringing and with my last eyesight I look up at the sky, and the almost indistinguishable stars, surrounded by deeper violet than ever before, almost sweet indigo. The stars fly towards me, and it is beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)


	12. Dream Sequence Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie converses with the Reaper once more.

Yui lays in the wheat, her body crumbling in to disappearing dust like she had never existed. She just becomes another part of the world around me, the dust that makes me choke in the summer. I, however, am not there, I am simply a spectator to her disappearance, as if there was nobody around to watch.

Where she once lay, a single flower grows. It’s like I’m seeing a time lapse of her death. The flower does not swell or grow, it is a poppy, and after growing and blooming it wilts, leaving no trace of her existence. That was _me. I did that to her, I killed her._ I look down at my blood covered hands and I shiver as my consciousness beats the shit out of my psyche, but the blood isn’t there. 

The Reaper stands by my side again and he looks at me. He stares me in the eye. We are watching from nowhere and everywhere how time passes on without Yui, how the fields become nothing, how it’s built into houses, and how the fields I grew up in become part of a city, how the blue sky becomes grey and smoggy. Everything I hate.

“It is not your time.” He says, and his words feel oddly familiar to me. “Jackie. It is not your time.”

“You say that a lot.” I look towards him for the first time. He really is a sight to behold, and I don’t even like men. “Haven’t you got anything else?”

“No. That’s all I _can_ ever say to you.” He fades in to nothing and a woman appears at my side. She has curly hair, like Amelia, and green lips and striking brown eyes. She’s wearing all white, just like the Reaper. “Even when I change, you won’t.”

The town is wiped clean and it becomes land again, and slowly it becomes green again, someone comes and plants wheat. The soil is still good for wheat. The sprouts grow taller than ever, but Yui still leaves an imprint in the soil. A single poppy grows where she died. It’s not destroyed by the harvests or the tilling, and it stays there. A permanent memorial.

“Everything is cyclical. It comes back. But you aren’t, because you never move from one place. Only your mind does.” 

“What do you mean?” I raise an eyebrow. I don’t understand her.

“It’s not your time, Jackie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nearly there now :’) I wanna let you guys know that like. There will be a delay between this and the next part because I wanna get a good foothold in it, mostly cause I have like. 2001: a Space Odyssey brainrot right now so it’s hard to focus on anything else but I WILL get there and write it, I have a story to tell and I’m not backing down haha. hope you guys enjoy it.


	13. Chapter Thirteen: I Think It’s Gonna Be A Long, Long Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

There’s beeping in the room, that’s the first thing I notice as I come in to a strange thought of consciousness. I thought I was dead. The last thing I remember is dying, but I’m nowhere near dead now. Or maybe I am. I know Jack is leaning over me; I can feel him holding my hand and rubbing it, and I can smell his perfume. But he isn’t screaming like he was before, instead he’s oddly serene and calm. He’s been singing quietly for hours, and I remember him doing that, and it’s strangely reminiscent of when I was a little girl and I was recovering from an appendectomy in the hospital.

His voice is sore, I can tell from the way he sings and the way he sounds like he’s going to cry. Alto is here too, though I don’t know if he’s awake. He’s draped over Jack’s back and does little other than move occasionally, followed by a break in Jack’s singing. But the hand has always been there as I have dipped in and out of consciousness for what I assume is hours. I can’t even tell what Jack is singing, just that it’s there, and it’s the only thing keeping him from tears. His never ending voice makes it seem as if he’s broken, as if he has nothing left. I’m very concerned about him.

He stops abruptly and he leaves my side, leaving the hand on its own. When the curtain crinkles shut I hear him quietly cry before Alto leaves to soothe him, mumbling sweet, encouraging words to him. I can’t tell what he’s saying, only that it’s stifling Jack’s tears, and that it’s being said with love. Maybe they want to turn my life support off and Jack won’t let them even though I’m using up a perfectly good ventilator.

“She’ll wake up soon...” I hear a snippet of an unknown voice through the curtain. “...Strange physiology... bone regrowth... little to no damage to brain tissue...” are all phrases I can make out but can’t piece together. “...bent, perhaps? Was that you?”

“No... I wasn’t thinking about that...”

The clock ticks and the noise fades away.

==========

I am awake now. And I have been awake for a very long time. Jack is asleep to my side, hand on mine. I’m out of it; I’m very cold, I’m very drugged up, and for the first time I am realising just how much the Site Infirmary sucks. Alto isn’t in the room. I can’t tell what time it is, or what unit of the Infirmary I’m in, or how long it’s been since I was shot. I don’t even know who shot me, that’s how I’m the dark I am. And yes, I am physically in the dark. The lighting can be best described as dusk, but I know the infirmary is subterranean and has no windows. All I know for sure is that _I should be dead, and I’m not dead_. So that... that is a little confusing. 

Alto peeks through the curtains, holding two paper cups of coffee from, I’m guessing, his coffee machine. He sees my state and Jack’s, and holding the coffees, he puts them down next to me and sits opposite Jack. He offers a coffee and I take it with my free hand, taking a long sip.

“Are you okay, beauty?” He asks after a while of silent sipping, eyes furrowed. He’s taken a moment to become his normal self. “You’ve been asleep for nearly two weeks.” He stifles a giggle.

“How am I not dead?” My voice is gravelly, almost like there’s something stuck in my windpipe.

“Ah, well... they did some tests on you, beauty... you’re immortal. You have the biological age of a twenty five year old. Which I thought was funny.”

I take a moment away to think before looking towards him. “Was that your doing?”

“No. Jack would never let me do that, you know how he is, and how he feels about it. He’s been in a very dark place since you got shot. We think it was Marion, when she was still around.” He looks down at his lap. “When you were a kid, you were the only thing that kept him going. To see him like that... well, it was... heartbreaking. I knew you’d pull through, you’re strong, and I always had a feeling you weren’t quite human, but him? I thought he was gonna relapse.”

“I’m sorry. I still don’t know who shot me.” I furrow my brow. “The gun just... well, it literally came out of left field. I didn’t even see the hand that pulled the trigger, I was just there, and then I got blown through the wheat and on to the path.”

“Well, you fainted due to blood loss and shock.” He recalls, rubbing his fingers over a small piece of paper. “You got shot right in the heart, and your trachea was practically obliterated, but ultrasound shows they’re healing. Slowly, yeah, but... better than... better than not healing. That why your voice is so gravelly.”

I look down at Jack’s arms. His hands are covered in bandages, a brace, nearly. He’s worn these before, when he couldn’t be trusted with his hands. Back in the early eighties, I’ve seen the photos of him wearing them. There is a particular one of him and Alto I remember where Alto is practically holding his hands away from him while Jack looks nervously at the camera. There are more in a similar collection of them kissing, which I remember them developing at home and trying to keep the photos away from me in case I talked.

I didn’t understand why at the time, but Alto kept picking me up and tucking me in to Jack’s arms while Jack cried. I must have been about two or three, four at a push, but I remember being coddled incessantly for a few weeks, to the point I would run away from Alto when he tried to pick me up. We used to be quite good with each other; he wouldn’t shiver in case he dropped me and I would sit in his arms contently so long as he didn’t try anything I didn’t like. 

When I was young and I looked at the scars I would play with them, drag my fingers up and down them like a maze. Jack would only smile patiently and kiss me on the head. He would try and move his arms away but I would just follow them with my hands, to the point where he would let me do what I wanted to. In the summers I’d see they were all over his body, not just his arms but his chest and his stomach, some years I would see more than the previous year. He would hide them behind tank tops and layer on too much sunscreen and sometimes he would wear pure silk kaftans and just hide his body from everyone else, because he was ashamed of what he had done to it. 

I realised as I got older, much older, that Jack hadn’t been coping at the time, and that was where the smooth white marks all across his arms came from. I was horrified, I had played with these as a child, even though it caused him pain.

“Dad, did he cut?” 

“He’d been coping so well.” Alto shakes his head. “They thought you were never going to wake up, and when they told him, I took him home and he just... he disappeared. I found him when it was too late.”

“God, I’m so sorry-”

“It’s not your fault, it’s those goddamn doctors. They know how he feels about you, they poke him around enough. He’s been off work since you were shot, he’s barely left. They’re monitoring him, of course, they don’t want him to attempt suicide again because it means he’s fallen back in to bad habits.” He sighs and rubs his temple, stretches out clicking shoulders and drinks his coffee quietly. “So be gentle with him, please. Don’t bring up the cuts or the bandages, don’t try to soothe him, just get on with it.”

“Alright, dad.”

==========

Magnetic Resonance Imaging works through an oscillating magnet that excites hydrogen atoms inside the body and makes them emit a radio signal. The signal is picked up by a receiving coil that then records the density of the fat and water in my body, and creates a map of how I look from the inside. It’s a wonderful machine, truly a feat of human engineering. And that’s what I have to remember while I am inside this fucking machine.

It clicks as it moves around me. Click. Click. Click. They want to see my trachea and the bullet wound in it. The bullet itself is gone, I mean, how would I be in the MRI with it? It would have ripped through my trachea again. They want to make it in to a paper, and I reckon Jack will review it. I mean, it’s pretty cool, my trachea is regrowing itself. They’ve been stuffing me in to this daily since I got shot and started recovering. I’m not getting any better at being inside of it. They also don’t really want to sedate me, because that could kill me. They don’t know what I am yet and I don’t know, Jack doesn’t know and Alto doesn’t know. I could be immortal, I could be extremely lucky. But seeing as I was shot in the heart, I think it’s the former.

“You alright in there?” The technician asks. I wish I operated one of these things. “Just a little longer, and stay still! Try not to move your throat, that’s what they want to see.”

I’m not allowed to respond when I’m in the machine because it lessens the quality of the image. I have to stay as still and as quiet as possible. They could have done a CT scan, but I’m also supposing they don’t want to submit me to any ionising radiation because they don’t know what it’ll do to me. I don’t know what it’ll do to me. But I think I hate being in the MRI machine so much I would rather have died to the bullets. 

In other news, I had to take my earrings out and the holes are slowly closing. I’m starting to get worried that I won’t be able to put them back in my ears when I leave the machine.

Finally, the machine releases me and I sit up, slapping the side of my head as I do. The taste of contrast agent dries my mouth and I step off the bed. I’m still finding it relatively hard to walk after spending so much time in bed, but my legs are slowly acclimatising to walk. Strangely enough, I don’t want to break them anymore. All I know is that they’re not gonna let me out on my own for a while.

They’ve given me a cane to help with the walking, but I don’t like it. It’s annoying to have to pick it up every time I want to walk. So I hold the cane and I walk through the double doors, and by doing that I walk straight in to Jack’s hug trap. He needs it, he looks like he’s about to start crying constantly, so I give him the hugs without second thoughts. With my free hand, I pat his back gently, lean on the cane and I let him wrap his arms around me.

“Are you gonna be okay when I’m at work?” He mumbles, not even trying to move me out the way of the fumbling technician. “I have to go to work today, I can’t get any more time off.” 

“I’m gonna be fine, daddy. I have plenty of things to do.”

“Like what?” He looks up from the hug, confused, but his arms are still wrapped around me. 

“Sit and wait, maybe get scanned again because I trembled in the scanner, sleep. Rest is the best thing for healing, that’s what the scans seem to show.” I hold his hands and push him away slightly. The canvas and cotton wrapping around his palms and thumb is painful to see, synonymous with being a kid and being ignorant of his pain. I’m good at not showing it, I barely even wince. “Honestly, don’t worry about it.”

He notices me looking at his hands. “You’re not... disappointed, are you, darlin’? You know... I, I don’t...”

“Leave it. It’s fine.” I stop looking at his hands and instead I look at his forehead and his hair. He’s grey in many senses; the roots of his hair; his pasty skin; his normally scarlet lips. His eyes, which have always sparkled, even in times of distress, are grey and dull, nearly lifeless. “Don’t go to work. Go _home_ , do nice things, take a bath, get a good sleep in your bed, not just a chair next to a hospital bed. They know you’re having a bad time.”

“I might have to.” I catch a twinkle in his eye and a smile creep on to his lips. “I bought lavender bath salts right before it all went down, they’re still waiting on the kitchen table for me.” 

“So you’ll go home, right? And I’ll tell Alto where you went, so you don’t have to worry about getting in to trouble. But, seriously, you’ve looked after me, you’ve done a good job, I just think it’s best if you go home and look after yourself.” I bargain with him, like I was a kid. But I mean it. He needs to go home and to rest himself before he gets back in to work, and he knows that we both know that.

“Well... I can’t argue with you.” For the first time in weeks, I see some emotion crawl on to his face. 

==========

“Honestly, darlin, you don’t sound that bad.” Jack comforts, walking over to the kitchen island. He’s returned to his former state, well coiffed and cleaned, his hair is scarlet and his eyes are becoming the same blue as mine again. He hasn’t taken the bandages off his hands and arms yet, but he’s made them look good with a pair of black lace gloves that just cover the bandages, and he hides them under his shirts. “It’s just a little gravelly! You’ll be fine, if anything they’ll just take less shit from you, which is great.” 

Jack picks Sun up from his tiny bed and holds him against his chest. Alto got him a puppy, a golden retriever, and that’s part of the reason he’s so happy. He treats Sun like a baby; gives him daily baths, brushes his teeth, and of course the dog sleeps with them in bed. He gets his own meals, which Jack makes fresh, and eats at the table, or at least close to it. Sun also doesn’t want to go outside, ever. Every time Alto tries to take him on a walk, Sun will have returned within five minutes because he simply refuses to walk.

I find I relate to a spoilt-rotten puppy more than I do other people my age. Not that I know many. Plus, he is very fluffy and also smells like strawberries most of the time. I like him, he’s a very good boy.

“I sound like I’m a bodybuilder on fucking steroids. I hate it. Couldn’t the bullet have just removed my ability to talk?” I whine, fingering the still sore wound. It’s healing layer by layer, and I have the bandages off to breathe the wound as Jack’s been telling me to. I mean, I trust him slightly more than I do other doctors, he’s been practising since the 50s. 

“Oh, darlin’, you wouldn’t say that if you couldn’t speak.” He rocks the puppy as if he were a baby and strokes his ears. Sun goes floppy and smiles. He’s so small. “I think your new voice suits you.”

“You totally sound like you’re on ‘roids, beauty.” Alto walks in to the kitchen, having returned from his run, and and kisses Jack’s cheek. He strokes Sun’s fluffy scruff. “You sound like a badass. Make up a cool story to go with it.”

“I think the story I have is pretty good. Shot by random man in fields after killing reality bender.” I announce like a headline, but I can’t go that loud or it’s hurts my throat. “I don’t know if I could come up with anything cooler, unless I added in some lasers or something.”

“Man with laser hand.” Alto nods and points at me with one finger. “On a pirate ship.”

“Yeah, okay, dad.” I sigh, and I rest my head in my hand. The tension pulls at the wound on my throat and I put my hands down again, close to my sides. I haven’t seen the wound, but I know it’s gonna leave an ugly scar.

Jack sighs sympathetically and kisses me as he walks past with the dog, possibly ready to brush all of Sun’s hair out again. I just hope none of it gets in my throat. “Dress your wound when you’re ready, darlin’, you’ve let it breathe long enough.”

When I was in high school - ninth grade - I got dragged twenty meters along the concrete for snitching on someone that was cheating in class, because I thought it was the right thing to do. Little did I know that the kid would find out and beat the shit out of me before knocking my head on the concrete and hiding me behind a bush. It was probably one of the worst moments of my life. 

I walked home myself that day. It took an hour and a half, but I couldn’t have been in school any longer. Just as Jack was fretting over the phone he saw me in the kitchen, covered in dust and dried blood. It was the hottest day of the year and I was bright red with sunburn. Looking back, I was also probably suffering from heat sickness.

Jack was the person that dressed my wounds, and he very silently cried while he disinfected and bandaged me up. There were gashes across my face and arms, all of which he had to stare at while I said nothing but whined if he touched something I didn’t want him to.

When I was in the hospital I thought of that time. How the three of us, when we were barely a family unit, had to cope with what happened to me when I was fourteen repeated itself when I was in my thirties, when we were a family unit. Suffering is cyclical.

==========

The airport is busy and I hear the boarding call for my flight, for a second time. I stand, and Jack and Alto follow closely behind. As I stand beside the gate they both stop me before I can leave to bid their goodbyes to me, as they’re entitled to. I’m their _daughter_. To be frank, I’m surprised I didn’t leave earlier. And I think Alto had something to do with the entire immortality thing, no matter the deflections he puts on it.

“Oh, darlin, I never thought I’d see the day!” Jack muses, clasping his hands over his chest. “You’re all grown up, honey! Off to live all by yourself!”

“I’ve been ‘all grown up’ and living separate from you guys since I was in my twenties.” I give them a look of confusion. 

“Well, now we can have sex without checking to see if you’re there.” Alto nods, and Jack smacks his forearm gently, while I shiver and cringe in disgust. “I see this as a win. For us.” 

“Alto!” Jack exclaims, crossing his arms. “We’re going to miss you, sweetie. I’m gonna call you every week, and I’ll send pie if you want it.”

I sigh loudly, before caving in to him. “Cherry, if you will. And the brandy.” He nods affirmatively in response, I can practically see his hands kneading the dough already. 

“And I, my darling, will kill anyone that-" Alto begins, before Jack cuts him off.

“Don’t, honey, we’re in an airport. You can’t get away with that kind of thing here, not anymore.”

“Well, my plane is boarding, so I’m going to have to go.” I nod at them both, and I watch as their eyes suddenly become a lot wider, and wetter. “Why are you crying? I’m gonna be fine out there. Detroit isn’t that bad, we’ve been before.”

“We don’t want you to go.” Alto sighs and pouts. “Even though we know you have to, and that we can’t hold you back.”

“If you love it, let it go.” Jack’s hand reaches for his husband’s, and they both recoil in to one another’s sides. I can’t tell, but I think they’re both silently crying. “You’ve been here ever since we’ve been in love, it’s a big change. But your dad’s right, we can’t stop you from going. It’s good that you’re finally leaving, and a relief you can’t die.”

“You’re gonna make a great partial Director, sweetie. But not as good as me.” Alto smiles and gives me a thumbs up, and a fist bump. “Now remember; don’t skimp on the telekill, don’t be afraid to nuke the Site, and for the love of god, beauty, brush your teeth twice a day.”

“Okay, dad.” I partially roll my eyes and partially smile at his concern. “ _Please_ don’t kill each other while I’m gone. And don’t be one of those couples that kill other people in a really lovey-dovey way for sport.”

“I can’t promise that.” Jack takes one of my hands. “But I’ll try not to kill him. If you want to kill people, shred some of your documents and say they stole it, works every time. Also, some sites have pods to make coffee and the purple ones are the best, steal all the purple ones.”

“That’s where the fucking purple ones go?” Alto gasps and looks down. “You drink them? You drink all of them?”

“Steal then before you even put them in the box.” Jack nods, and turns towards me. “Honestly, I save a fuckin’ fortune, I just take them from work and drink them at home.”

“I mean, you’re a genius, but what the fuck? I have a bunch of mutant ones you can drink.”

“But they don’t fit in the machine.” Jack responds nonchalantly. “I’ve tried, I felt bad about stealing the best ones. I leave a few, it makes more demand which makes people think they’re better which in turn makes me feel better because I have the best ones.”

I just stand and nod, because I have no clue how to respond to them. Steal the purple pods, advice noted. Sure. If I can find the purple pods, I’ll steal them. Over the tannoy, the announcement screams for boarding again. I am the only person in front of the gate.

“We love you, Jackie.” Jack hugs me suddenly, patting my back. “I love you. Now, you put the scar cream on the throat and you drink lots of water and don’t talk too loudly, and your voice should probably go back to normal, but if it doesn’t, don’t be afraid. You sound great.”

Alto joins in the hug. “You’ll come back home for Christmas, won’t you?” 

“Yeah.” I choke through their iron vice. “I love you guys too. Now, could you let go of me?”

They both back away quickly and a security guard pulls me away from them. They both wave in unison as I’m dragged through the gate, and it feels like a transition as they’re lost from my view. The guard lets go of me and I follow him, suitcase in tow. I think it’s funny I can carry everything I love in a collapsing suitcase, that I could leave everything else I love at home. I have an ascot, ties, a few waistcoats, pencil skirts, pants, my laptop, a ukulele and some of my records. That’s all I _need_. Everything else I have fits on my body.

And it’s weird, I think it’s weird that after Amelia left everything just became things to me, that they lost their meaning. Things that were associated with her became just that - things. The cough syrup bottles, the box sets, even the jewellery she gave me over the years became things with no meaning despite everything they meant to me. The necklace I wear that Osbourne gave to me in 2003 is a symbol of our friendship, and I think of ‘the Disabled Club’ every time I see it, and I laugh. Even though all my records are on my phone, nowadays, I still remember how Jack would slip them to me when I couldn’t sleep, and that gives me something to care about. My ukulele belonged to Alto once and we used to play on them in the summer when Marion was gone, and I care about it. Everything else is just everything else.

I’m starting to think that Yui didn’t puppet Amelia that night, even though I want to be right about it. I think that maybe we both needed someone else. We’re both getting on in life, and for once I think that’s okay. I want to be older. I want to be wiser. And I want to love someone that loves me like my parents love each other. You can find the wrong people in life all too often, but that’s why you find them. So you can hope that they’re right.

Would you look at that? I’m coming of age. And it only took me 36 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey guys. takin’ a small hiatus (3-4 months mayb) so I can do something else. then i shall return with the third instalment :)  
> anyway i hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. jackie is my baby and she means like. a lot to me. but for now it is time for mr. danger to disappear... see u all soon!


End file.
